Future on Hold
by fang ova fang
Summary: People tend to believe they will always have time and that their future will be bright. But what happens when a group of friends end up trapped in a world where the dead eat the living and the living will do anything to survive? Will they stay true to there friends or will the fall to their inner monster? One thing is certain, their future is on hold. X-over, explained inside.
1. Chapter 1

**A.N: This is a Rosario Vampire X Highschool of the Dead story, so for the sake of the story the group from Rosario Vampire will have started school later. It will be taking place at the end of the first year after the fight with Kuyo and the discipline committee. But they will all be 17 at the time with Yukari being 14.**

 **This story is not in the cross over section because it is impossible to get any traffic of people reading it. Therefore it is impossible to get any better at writing. So I hope you all forgive me for the mislabelling.**

 **Just a warning. If you do not wish to see any of the Rosario Vampire or High school of the dead cast die, leave now, because there will be two deaths at least, maybe more if the story requires it.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Rosario Vampire or Highschool of the Dead. Those rights go to Akihisa Ikeda and D** **aisuke Satō** **/Shōji Satō respectively.**

 **Future on Hold**

Some people wish to think that they will always have a tomorrow. That when they wake up nothing will have changed. They can still look forward to their future, filled with friends and family. But the world can sometimes throw a wrench into your plans. You never know what could happen when it does.

My friends and I always knew that things could go wrong. They had been going wrong at our school since I got there at the start of the year. That was just how it went in a school for monsters. But none of us ever expected to be stuck in a world where the dead feasted on the living and the living often took out their frustration or insanity out on anything they could. I just hope they can forgive me for leaving them in that world so quickly

 _2 days ago_

"MOKAAAAA! We did it!" Shouted a young girl, around 14 years old, as she ran towards her friends. She had brown eyes and hair and was dressed in a school uniform with a dark brown cape over her shoulders and a matching witch's hat on her head.

"Did what 'wash board'?" Said a snarky voice from the group. This was a busty teen about 17 years of age, with light blue hair tied up into a loose ponytail with a purple bow. She had on a white long-sleeved shirt and an olive green shirt which was the customary girls school uniform. However over this she had a yellow sweeter vest with a red bow.

"Flat is better 'Mellon mounds'!" shouted the younger girl.

"Please don't start fighting right now Yukari, Kurumu." Pleaded a pretty pink haired teen. "But what did you do Yukari?" This teen was 17 as well and she was dressed in the full school uniform including the green blazer over the top.

"Oh, right Moka." Remembered Yukari. "Ruby and I have found a way to allow you to take off your own rosary! Isn't that great?!"

Everyone looked startled as they had no idea the two were even looking for a way for Moka to remove her seal. So their friend, and not-so-secret love interest, Tsukune Aono asked the obvious question.

"When did you start this?" The brown haired boy started. "And how do you plan to change it?" he followed up.

"Oh Tsukune, I always knew you were smart! I started talking about this project with Ruby about a month ago. We were thinking that if we could loosen the magic in the seal a bit it would allow for an easy removal without breaking the seal. Pretty clever huh?" Yukari bragged. "So what do you say Moka? Wanna do it?"

Moka looked a bit conflicted, obviously weighing up the pros with the possible cons and risks. However, Kurumu being the ever impulsive one of the bunch leant on Moka's shoulder and shouted

"What are we waiting for!? Let's go get Mizore and do this thing! Yahoo!"

"But I'm right behind you" said a quiet voice from behind the group. When they turned around they spotted a slightly shorter teen with shoulder length lavender hair, icy blue eyes and a lollipop in her mouth. This is Mizore Shirayuki, deciding to forgo the usual academy uniform she is dressed in a black tank-top with a loose black sleeved white sweater and the olive school skirt. She also has on thigh high purple and lavender striped stockings and a belt strapped around her thigh with a strap connected to her skirt, on her feet are white runners.

"Jeez Mizore, don't sneak up on us like that. Never mind, let's just go. Lead the way Yukari!" Kurumu shouted as she started dragging Moka along ignoring her protests.

Everyone followed a few seconds later with Mizore muttering under her breath.

"But I've been here the whole time."

5 Minutes later (School Gymnasium)

"Yukari?"

"Hmm?" hummed the girl in question.

"How did you convince the headmaster to let you do this to the gym?" asked a outwardly calm but internally confused Kurumu Kurono. And with good reason too. Normally the floor of the gymnasium is covered with scuff marks from shoes but now it looks like it has been scrubbed absolutely clean in order to place down a ritual pentagram.

"I was supposed to ask?" questioned the puzzled girl. At this response everyone present felt sweat dripping down the back of their head.

"Anyway, you said both you and Ruby worked this out. Where is she then?" Tsukune asked his little friend.

"Oh, since she's the headmaster's secretary she said she'd keep the old guy busy while we do this. It isn't exactly permitted. So, shall we get this underway?"

Yukari could see that Moka still wasn't quite convinced so she decided to give her some assurance.  
"Look, I know this might seem scary but there is no way I will let anything bad happen to you Moka. I'm a witch so I'm experienced with magic, and both Ruby and I have been practicing on similar seals to your rosary. So there is nothing to worry about."

Moka, having never heard such seriousness in Yukari's voice before almost felt compelled to trust her. She just had one question.

"Where do we start?"

Chapter Finish

 **A.N. Hey Guys. This is my first ever story so any constructive feedback would be much appreciated. So please favourite, follow and leave a review.**

 **Cheers.**

 **Fang out.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A.N**

 **Leafeon12:** thanks I was originally planning on something a little different for him but I can work with that and it would actually lead to a much better plot point than what I originally had. And yes, they will definitely be meeting up. Just maybe not all at the same time. You'll see what I mean ;)

"People talking"  
'People thinking'  
 **"Monster form talking"  
'Monster form thinking'**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Rosario Vampire or Highschool of the Dead. Those rights go to Akihisa Ikeda and D** **aisuke Satō** **/Shōji Satō respectively.**

 **Future on Hold**

"Where do we start?"

You would never think such an innocent question could change anyone's life so drastically. This is an exception to that.

Back to the group we see them all standing in front of the pentagram drawn onto the ground of the gymnasium. It is all silent after that question is posed for the few seconds it takes for Yukari to finally grasp that Moka has agreed to proceed.

"Well…ah…" Yukari stumbles over herself as she tries to speak.

"Yes?" Moka prods. Hoping it isn't anything too difficult.

"You're not gonna like this but you will have to strip down to your underwear, desu."

"EEEHHHHH!?" Everyone shouts, none louder than Moka.

"I can't do that. It's embarrassing." Squeals Moka, horrified at the idea.

"Yeah, she can't strip down. Not in front of MY Chosen One!" Guess who.

"I can cover his eyes. I want to see this." Said the quiet voice of Mizore. "Did I say that out loud?"

Nods all around.

"Oh shit."

"Well actually Mizore, you can't, I'll need your help. Also Moka, it is necessary for this. I need to paint runes on your front to connect you to the rosary. Otherwise you won't be able to take it off." Yukari explained to the heavily embarrassed Moka. After the explanation it took a few minutes for Moka to both calm down and to stop matching her hair colour. Once she had calmed down she let Yukari continue explaining, but not without a light blush.

"Okay, as I was saying, you will have to be in your underwear and lay down in the centre of the pentagram so that I can paint on the runes. These runes will stay on your skin but will shrink to allow them to sit in between your breasts, right about where your rosary sits. After painting the runes, that is where you will come in Mizore, you too Kurumu." The two girls nodded when they heard their names come up. "I will need the two of you to stand at the bottom two corners of the pentagram while I stand at the top. Then you will have to channel your youkai out of your body. You don't have to control it, just start releasing some. The pentagram will do the work. This will also have the added benefit that any of us will be able to remove the rosary. So just channel your youkai until the ritual is complete and then Moka will be able to remove her seal herself. Any questions?

"Yeah, what do I do in the mean time?" asked Tsukune, not wanting to be left out.

"Well, since you don't have really have access to your youkai, I'll have you stand behind me and hold onto Moka's clothes until the end." Yukari answered, and Tsukune didn't have a rebuttal that he could give so he just accepted that.

"Will it hurt?" quizzed the lady of the hour, hoping it did not.

"No, it will not hurt, but the brush strokes may tickle. And…" Yukari trailed off, not wanting to say it out loud.

"And…?" Moka pushed, wanting to get all the information she could before they started. So Yukari leaned in to whisper in her ear.

"When we were testing it out, Ruby volunteered to be the Guinee pig. She said the feeling of the foreign youkai washing over her was quite…pleasant. If you get what I mean. So watch out for that."

While this was being said, Mizore, Kurumu and Tsukune just saw Moka's face turning redder, but decided not to pry. With everything needing to be said, said, Yukari told everyone to turn away to turn around to limit the embarrassment Moka would feel while she took her clothes off. When she was done, Yukari led Moka to the centre of the pentagram and requested she lie down. Once she had, Yukari allowed everyone to turn around again as she started to paint the runes and glyphs onto Moka's creamy white stomach, Moka struggling not to giggle. Once finished she drew a wavy line between her bosom and ending under where the rosary sat.

"Okay girls, let's get into position. To get started." Yukari said as they started to stand at their spots. Mizore chose to stand on the bottom left point of the Pentagram, while Kurumu got the bottom right and of course Yukari had the top. Once there Yukari decided to give Tsukune a last minute warning.

"Tsukune, whatever happens, don't step inside the pentagram once we start. I don't know what adding the more impure youkai of your ghoul side will do to the ritual once we start, and trust me, this will draw out your youkai if you step in."

"Wait, what do you mean impure youkai? Wouldn't youkai in general be considered impure?" argues Tsukune, feeling somewhat insulted, not quite knowing why.

Realising she may have offended her friend, Yukari was quick to rectify her wording. "No no no no no, I didn't mean anything like that. It's just that since you weren't born with it, the youkai is not really the same, desu!"

Reluctantly, Tsukune backed down, understanding that it was better safe than sorry.

"…"

"OKAY! So is everyone ready to start this? Start channelling your youkai, and Tsukune, stand back."

As soon as everyone started channelling a barrage of colours started flying around the room. An icy blue started drifting from Mizore, while a deep royal purple mist came off of Kurumu. Lastly a dazzling orange similar to the Sun started surrounding Yukari. All these colours were mixing together to create a range of colours of browns and reds and yellows. Slowly these colours converged in the centre, directly over Moka where they enveloped her body and blending into a moonlight silver.

Standing at the edge of the pentagram, Tsukune was entranced by all the colours. Not thinking he started walking towards the colour attracting him the most, the silver in the centre.

So concentrated on channelling youkai, Yukari never noticed Tsukune moving until too late. In a futile attempt to stop him she called out to the boy. "TSUKUNE! STOP!"

Breaking out of his trance, Tsukune had just put his foot into the drawing. All of a sudden a black energy looking like fire sprang to life outside his body. The scream he let out of his mouth was louder and more chilling than any of the calls from the monsters at the academy.

"AAAHHH!"

"TSUKUNE!" shouted all of the girls, without stopping channelling, afraid for their friends safety.

"Tsukune, you need to try to stop the flow of your youkai! It's too much for the seal to handle!"

But Tsukune was unable to concentrate on Yukari's voice due to the pain of what felt like all the nerves in his body being yanked out of his body. The pentagram just kept drawing out all the youkai it could from his body.

As quickly as it started drawing in the youkai, the pentagram refused to take any more from any of them, and Tsukune dropped to the floor, panting heavily.

"Everyone, stop channelling. Tsukune are you alright?" questioned Yukari. Then without really paying attention to his reply she looked at what was happening with Moka. There was Moka floating in the air above where she had been laying, still covered in the silver shroud but now with black streaks through it.

"What the hell is happening to her?" Kurumu asked Yukari.

"It looks like her rosary is trying to absorb the residual power."

"And what will that do?" spoke up the ever quiet Mizore.

"Well, the rosary could just contain the extra energy and allow us an extra boost if needed, but that's the best case scenario."

"What *pant* would be *puff* the worst case?" wheezed the exhausted and in pain Tsukune.

"Well, worst case is it can't handle the extra power and explodes." As she explains this, Yukari rubs the back of her head sheepishly.

"WHAT!" both Kurumu and Mizore shout in unison, Tsukune too out of breath to shout.

"There's nothing we can do right now. I'm just as worried as you all are. We just have to hope that hear seal is strong enough."

The next few minutes were torture for the group, hoping against all hope they didn't just get their killed. After 3 minutes the shroud was fully absorbed by the rosary. Yukari went over to check on the state of the unconscious Moka and her rosary with Tsukune following up behind. Kurumu and Mizore decided to hang back a few feet together to give them some room.

"Well, the rosary seems to be keeping all the extra youkai in check. I think we're alright." At that, everyone let out the breath they were holding.

"Tsukune, please turn around so I can dress Moka. She shouldn't be in this state longer than necessary."

Realising the state of his first friend and crush, Tsukune quickly turned around with an atomic blush going down to his neck. But he still refused to leave his friend's side. Hearing the sound of fabric sliding over skin did not help his blush in the slightest. Once Yukari was done she informed him with a quick tap on the shoulder.

As Tsukune turned around he focused in on Moka's sleeping face. 'Cute…' He caught himself before taking that thought further. Only just focusing back on the world around him as Mizore spotted something off.

"Hey, what's happening to the rosary?"

Sure enough there was a light, pink glow coming from the jewel in the centre. As the glow faded the jewel burst into shards in its casing, releasing a blinding burst of pink light, forcing Yukari and Tsukune to cover their eyes while grabbing onto Moka. None of them had time to react to the explosion that followed.

For all four conscious friends everything went black.

 **A.N**

 **Well that's the end of that chapter. Please leave a review and if you like the story so far follow and favourite me or the story.**

 **Show me that smile**

 **Fang out**

 **(P.S testing out a sign off. Tell me what you think** **)**


	3. Chapter 3

"People talking"  
'People thinking'  
 **"Monster form talking"  
'Monster form thinking'**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Rosario Vampire or Highschool of the Dead. Those rights go to Akihisa Ikeda and D** **aisuke Satō** **/Shōji Satō respectively.**

'Agh, what happened? My head is killing me.' These were the first thoughts of our young friend, Yukari. 'Last thing I remember is checking Moka's rosary and then… and then… *Gasp* The explosion!'

"Tsukune, Moka, Kurumu, Mizore?!" called the young girl trying to see in the dim light of the alley way…. 'Hang on. Why am I in an alley?' Taking in a better look of her surroundings, she noticed that they were no longer in the academy dimension. 'We must be in the human world. But where? And where is everyone else?'

Looking around she spotted a length of pink hair, sticking out from behind a large recycle bin. "MOKA!" Yukari dashed over to her friend and found her leaning against the bin, still unconscious, with a knocked out Tsukune resting his head on her lap.

"Guys, wake up, something went wrong! We need to find Kurumu and Mizore." Yukari pleaded, receiving a grunt from Tsukune and a moan from Moka. When neither woke up, Yukari took matters into her own hands and summoned two metal tubs and dropped them on both teens. However it only succeeded in waking Tsukune. With a yelp Tsukune sat up rubbing his head.

"What was that for?!"

"You didn't wake up when I told you to." Yukari said with a childish pout. "But why didn't Moka wake up?"

"Maybe she's still recovering from the ritual." Reasoned Tsukune. "How long do you think that will take, Yukari?"

Yukari started to ponder the question. "Could take anything from a few minutes to a few hours."

'Just great,' thought an exasperated Tsukune. Finally Tsukune took in their surroundings. "Ahh, Yukari? Where are we?"

"*sigh* I believe we are in the human world. From the looks of the Sakura blossoms on the ground at the end of the alley I would guess Japan." Came the logical reply by the young witch

"Ah. Great." Tsukune sounded completely unenthusiastic about that. "But why are we here?" he deadpanned. 'She doesn't seem at all fazed by this.' He thought.

"Umm, Tsukune, I think it has something to do with that." When he saw the concerned look on Yukari's face, he followed where she was pointing and saw that Moka's Rosary had changed. It was now divided into two shades, black and white. The left half was now black with its half of the bead being white, while the right half was white with its part being black. "We're gonna have to wait for Moka to wake up to see if that affected her at all"

"Good point"

"But back onto what happened. I'm not entirely sure but I think that since Moka's rosary was also part dimension magic to hold the alternate personas, when it overloaded it sent us through a dimensional rip to the human world. I don't know if Kurumu and Mizore are here as well or not. They may have been close enough to get dragged in as well."

"So, basically we got blown out of the dimension?" summarised the confused Tsukune.

"In more basic terms? Yes. But we still need to find out exactly where we are."

"Well we're not in Kansas anymore." Joked Tsukune.

"Haha, really Tsukune? A Wizard of Oz joke? Lame!"

Whether or not it was from Yukari's laughter or Tsukune's horrible joke is unknown, but at that moment Moka started to stir. With a feminine moan she opened her eyes to the site of two of her good friends squabbling over something.

"It was not a lame joke."

"Was too. I'm just glad Moka wasn't awake to hear it."

"Oh yeah. At least I can make the joke" Tsukune said beneath his breath as he turned away with a childish pout on his face.

"What's going on" Moka's voice was so quiet that it was only thanks to the absolute silence in the surrounding area that either friend heard her. Looking over at her, the two were slightly shocked at what they saw.

Staring back at them were two eyes of piercing colour. The left eye was a deep red, the colour of blood while the right eye was a jade green colour.

Moka was starting to get uncomfortable with the staring so asked the only logical question. "What? Do I have something on my face?" She then started to feel around to find what they were staring at.

"Moka…" Yukari started carefully, knowing that her friend might get mad from the mess-up. "I think there may have been some complications with the ritual."

"What? What complications? Have I been turned into a hideous ogre? Do I have any extra ears? What's wrong with me?" Moka started firing in rapid succession, not giving Yukari a chance to talk.

"Okay, in order, I'll explain that in a minute. No, you aren't an ogre now. What? And at the moment a few cosmetic difference are the only differences we know about." Yukari fired off her answers without hesitation.

"Phew, I'm not an ogre. What's different? And what else happened?"

"I think we may have been thrown into the human world when we overloaded the rosary.."

"You did WHAT!?"

"Tsukune stepped into the pentagram.." Yukari pointed her thumb at the boy in question.

"Sorry?" Yukari and Moka both nodded in sync and turned back to one another.

"And that may have caused some alterations to your rosary and yourself. Before you ask, I don't know if the rosary functions any differently than before, and from what we can see you now have heterochromia."

"Hetero-what-now?" asked a puzzled Moka, as she now looked at her new rosary.

"It means two different coloured eyes. Your left eye is now the same red as your true form."

"Does that mean me and Ura have merged?"

' **Not quite Omote'** Ura's voice rang inside Moka's head, causing the girl to jump

"What do you mean Ura"

' **I mean that I am no longer stuck in that Rosary. I am actually inside your head. I'm not sure what that means for our power but it seems like a case of split personality disorder. I would assume that if the right conditions were met we might switch for a while. Although we will have to wait and see.' (1)** Ura's explanation made a lot of sense so she decided to relay it to her friends.

"Ura says that she's no longer actually bound to the rosary. She's in my head kinda like another personality. She says that it may just take the right situation to switch."

"Well that answers that question. Now how do we get back to the school?" asked Tsukune.

"Well, we will need to find the Youkai Academy bus stop for this area. What do you think Moka? Moka?"

It was at this point that both Tsukune and Yukari noticed the glazed look in their friend's eyes and the concerned look on her face.

"Moka? What's wrong?" asked Tsukune.

"I just found out something else that changed." Moka started off shakily

"What is it?"

"I may have forgotten to mention that my Inner has the ability to sense youkai…and I think I may have gotten a little bit of that too."

"How is that bad?" asked Tsukune.

"Other than you and Yukari, I can only sense 2 other youkai signatures."

"How far is your range?" pondered Yukari, having a bad feeling she knew where this was going.

"Ura could sense the whole country, I can only get this city…"

"I really don't think we are in Kansas anymore Tsukune." Yukari said looking worriedly at Tsukune.

"Oh Come On! Why can you make the joke?!"

"Cause now it's serious. There are usually thousands of monsters per city. But Moka can only sense 5 including herself. That means this isn't the human world. At least not ours. That means we may not have a way back.

"Oh shit."

"Damn right 'Oh shit'. Well, no use waiting around for something to happen. Moka, can you sense exactly where those other two signatures are? I think they might be Kurumu and Mizore." Yukari asked Moka, hoping she could lead them.

"Sorry Yukari. My sensing isn't as strong as Ura's. I only know they're that way." Moka said pointing down the alley, towards another part of the city.

"Well, we might as well get going and ask someone for a lift. Otherwise we might be travelling all day." Tsukune reasoned. Moka and Yukari agreed with a silent nod and both got up to leave.

Looking back, they both realised Tsukune was still sitting in the same spot as he was before. "Tsukune, what are you doing? We have to go."

"Sorry Moka. By stepping into the Pentagram I had a lot of my Youkai drained. I can't really stand up all that well right now. Do you think you could help me up?"

"Sure thing Tsukune. Think I could get some blood for my efforts?" Moka chirped, trying to be as adorable as possible to convince the boy to let her take some blood.

"Sorry Moka. But until I've got my strength back I'll need all the blood I can get. Maybe once I've got my strength back some." Tsukune apologised, trying not to look at Moka's puppy dog eyes, trying to break his will.

"Oh, okay Tsukune. But later, promise?"

"Promise." Moka's downtrodden face almost made Tsukune relent anyway but was saved when Yukari grabbed them both by the arm, dragging them towards the entrance to the alley. None of them noticing the slowly drying pool of blood they walked over.

***PAGE BREAK***

"Where the hell is everyone!?" Asked an aggravated Tsukune. Why was he aggravated you ask? Well… "It's been almost 10 minutes and we haven't seen anyone! It's the middle of the freaking day!" There you go.

"Calm down Tsukune. We'll find someone eventually. Let's just keep going." Moka tried to reason with the boy

"And there's another thing. Why is there smoke rising all over the place but no sirens? Is this a normal thing here?"

At this point Yukari decided to end Tsukune's rant with an observation she just made.

"I don't know Tsukune, but I think I found someone."

"Is he drunk? He looks like he can barely walk straight." Moka asked her concern for the stranger showing through.

"I don't know, but I'm gonna check it out and ask for some help at least." Yukari said the last half as she started jogging over to the man.

"Yukari, wait." But Yukari couldn't hear her.

"Let's catch up to her Moka. I can move a little faster now." Tsukune said as they started after Yukari, Tsukune still leaning on Moka for support. They were still 40 meters behind when Yukari made it to the man, his back facing her.

"Excuse me sir. My friends and I are looking for some help. Do you think you can help us?" Yukari started. 35 meters. When the man didn't respond Yukari tried again. "Sir?" 30 meters. Yukari took notice of the man's clothes and noticed they had splotches of red. Yukari started to get worried. "Sir?" she said uncertainly. 25 meters. The man started to turn around slowly, which gave Yukari some relief. Until she saw the gaping wound on the man's shoulder and his grey skin. Yukari took a step back when the man fully faced her. 20 meters. His eyes were rolled back into his head and his eyes were white. He had blood dripping from his mouth and he smelled of decay. 15 meters. "Sir?" Yukari started to sound frightened. 10 meters. Suddenly the man lunged forward, tackling Yukari to the floor. Teeth latched around the hand she put up to defend herself. (2)

Tsukune and Moka both watched in horror as the man started gnawing on their friend's left hand. The screams of their friend snapping them back into focus, Tsukune let go of Moka and sprinted at the man. Determined to stop the violent attack. Putting all the strength, and unconsciously a small portion of his remaining youkai, that he could, Tsukune launched a kick at the man's jaw, breaking it instantly, forcing him to let go of Yukari's hand as he flew into a wall head first. For a minute all that could be heard were Yukari's sobs of pain. Tsukune, when he was sure the man wasn't about to attack them again, turned around to Yukari to check on her. By that time Moka had already reached them and was giving the girl a comforting hug.

"Yukari. Could I see your hand? I'll be gentle I promise." Tsukune coaxed. Yukari gave in without a fight. "We'll have to wrap this up to stop the bleeding. I'll use my blazer's sleeve." Tsukune talked to himself as he tore off the left sleeve to his green jacket. "I'm sorry Yukari, but this is going to hurt a little. I have to stop the bleeding."

Tsukune waited for Yukari to nod before he started to wrap the sleeve around the bite wound. She squeaked a little in pain when he tightened the make-shift bandage, but otherwise just kept crying silently.

"I'm gonna go check on him. Make sure I didn't kill him." Tsukune said as he stood to turn around.

"He's dead." Yukari's voice was so quiet Tsukune and Moka almost didn't hear her.

"What was that Yukari?" Asked Moka sweetly.

"I SAID HE'S DEAD!" Yukari shouted, the sound carrying through the air.

"She's right you know." The group were startled to hear a distinctly southern drawl say behind them all.

Turning around the three found a white man of about 6 foot 2 inches, possibly between the ages of 30 and 35. He was wearing a pair of blue denim jeans hanging over some snake skin boots. He was also wearing a brown overcoat with a black undershirt on. Perched on his head was a classic cowboy hat. However what really caught their attention was the Sniper Rifle slung over his right shoulder, sticking out over the top, and the Machete hanging by his waist.

This made Tsukune nervous. "I'm sorry, who are you? And what do you mean?"

"What he means is that guy was dead before you even kicked him." Yukari spoke. Finally able to stop crying as the pain had almost disappeared.

"How do you know that?" Tsukune spoke, sceptical of what she was saying. "We saw him moving, he attacked you!"

"I don't know how he was moving, but his eyes were completely white and his skin was decaying. Both of which only happen after death."

"She's a smart little girl. Too bad." The mystery man said, sounding remorseful.

"What is that supposed to mean, Mr…?" Asked Moka

"Maddows, Roy Maddows (3). And something tells me she can figure that out herself. Isn't that right sweetheart?" The now known Roy said in a soft voice, completely out of character with what his gear would suggest.

"I'm guessing the state he was in was due to the bite I saw on his shoulder?" Roy nodded. "So by that it means the bite of something does this to people, and since it was a human bite, it seems he was bitten by something like him. Am I close Roy?" Yukari continued.

"Yes sweetheart."

"Thought so. That means that whatever happened to him is probably going to happen to me." With that last line, Yukari seemed almost eerily calm about her situation. "Is there any cure?" She asked almost flippantly.

"No."

"Thought so."

"Wait! What are we missing here?" Tsukune decided to interrupt, needing to be informed about what was going on.

"Should I tell them sweetheart or do you want too?" Roy asked Yukari.

"Tell us what?" Moka asked, almost desperately.

"You do it Roy. You know more about this situation than I do." Yukari said to Roy, completely ignoring Moka's question.

"As you wish. But I would like an explanation on why none of you know what's going on when we get somewhere safe." Roy bargained, feeling it wasn't too big a deal. "We are in the middle of an apocalypse. That guy over there was one of the victims. The dead are not staying dead. No, now they're walking around eating everyone and turning what's left. Sweetheart over here is going to become like that thing you killed. They are not human anymore. Just mindless creatures, searching for food. If you have any questions. They'll have to wait until we get somewhere safe. The place I've been staying is not far from here. You kids stay close and I'll handle anything that gets in our way." Roy said before walking away, not giving the trio any time to say anything. When Yukari followed, Tsukune and Moka decided to trust their new guide.

If this guy was telling the truth, these were going to be the longest days of their lives.

 **A.N**

 **Side notes:**

 **(1)This will play a pretty important part in the story later.**

 **(2)I am really sorry to do this but I have to. I have nothing against Yukari, I actually really like her character, reminds me of a younger female me. But for the sake of character and plot development I have to do this.**

 **(3)Tell me what you think of my own OC**

 **That ends another chapter. Please leave a review and if you like the story so far, follow and favourite me or the story**

 **Show me that smile**

 **Fang out**


	4. Chapter 4

**A.N if you were wondering when Kurumu and Mizore were coming back into the story. That's this chapter**

"People talking"  
'People thinking'  
 **"Monster form talking"  
'Monster form thinking'**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Rosario Vampire or Highschool of the Dead. Those rights go to Akihisa Ikeda and D** **aisuke Satō** **/Shōji Satō respectively.**

 *****Story Start*****

***five minutes after meeting Roy Maddows***

"So Roy, where is this place you're taking us?" asked the inquisitive Moka, looking back at Yukari, making sure she was still there. She was beginning to look a little pale but was still keeping up fine. Moka then locked eyes with Tsukune who was leaning against her shoulder, arm around her, to keep himself standing and whispered. "Keep going. Shouldn't be too far before you can rest."

Roy turned around from his position leading the three friends and said in a quiet voice, "Try to keep your voices down. We might not see any of them but these things track by sound. But still, we're just around the corner from where I've been holding up with my group. Keep your guard up and let me know if you see anyone." With his part said, he turned back to the front and continued walking. No one else felt the need to continue talking so they continued on as well. As they reached the corner of the block they realised Roy had stopped walking and was pressed up against the wall, signalling to them to stay quiet.

Roy stayed quiet for about a minute, peeking around the corner, just as the others were about to question why they stopped he turned around and said, in a cautious whisper, "We might be a little screwed here." Wondering what spooked their unofficial guide, they each leaned out around the corner. Only to find a group of fifty of whatever these things were, with a few bodies lying half eaten on the ground, with holes in their heads. Seeing them Yukari let out a little squeak of fear, only for Roy to put a hand around her mouth silencing her. "I said these things track by sound!" he whispered harshly. "Do you want them to find us?" Yukari shook her head. "Good, me neither. Now, don't worry. My group had set up a method for any of the group to signal them if they were stuck outside the building. They can help us once we get their attention." As he said this he pulled out a radio. And whispered into it. "Tina ya fat tub of lard, come get your dinner"

"Hey Roy, what's the problem?" They heard a female voice whisper back.

"We got a bunch of Z-teens out the front, their blocking the way in. Gonna need a distraction. I've got a couple kids with me so I can't fight my way through." Silence reigned supreme for a few seconds then the female voice replied, "Copy that, setting the dinner bell."

With that the radio transmission finished and Roy looked back to the kids, only to find them staring at him with a deadpan expression. "What?"

Tsukune took the initiative and said "What was all that crap about Tina, Z-teens and Dinner bells?"

"Oh that. Well Tina is the other person on the radio, it's the phrase we have to give before she will reply, as a failsafe. Z-teens are what we call the dead guys, always shuffling about, not really paying attention to the world around them till they find food, kinda like a lot of teens these days. And the Dinner bells, you'll find out in I'd say about, "he looks at his watch, "Three, two, one, now" Right as he says "now," a loud ringing is heard a block to the left. "That, is the dinner bell. Now, no more questions, follow me and stay silent." Then he turns around the corner to see the Z-teens shuffling away towards the bell. He starts heading out with the three following close behind when all of a sudden, an alarm starts going off from one of the bodies lying 3 meters away, causing five of the Z-teens to turn around and start heading back.

Seeing the Z-teens walking back, Roy fishes the phone out of the persons pocket and quickly stomps on it to prevent others from turning around as well. From there he pulls the machete from its sheath and starts stalking silently towards the Z-teens.

He only got three meters before he realised that Yukari and Moka were right behind him, with Tsukune leaning against the wall where they originally stood. Realising they were wanting to help, but knowing they'd only get in the way without weapons he said to them calmly, "Thanks ladies, but I think it would be best if I took care of this."

However Yukari and Moka both looked determined and said in unison, "No, I want payback for the bite/I need to do this," and seeing the calm and confident smile on Tsukunes face he decided to let them follow, wanting to see what they could do.

As he neared the first Z-teen, however, two bonze basins appeared out of nowhere and destroyed the head of the two at the back, just as he was slicing of the head of the first. Turning around to see if anyone else saw the basins he saw a pink streak go passed him, snapping back to the front he was just in time to see Moka jump and do a split kick, kicking the last two Z-teens in the head and send them flying into opposite buildings where their head caved in on impact. The now thoroughly weirded out Roy turned to Yukari, to see her holding what looked like a stick with a love heart on it.

"Ooookay. Let's go inside. We will have to have chat about what I just saw," the two girls just nodded and went back to help Tsukune. Roy just shook his head and rubbed the back of his head "Things just got a whole lot more complicated."

***Page Break***

Upon entering the building the three teens found themselves at the end of a weapon each. A Desert Eagle trained on Yukari, a dagger placed at Moka's throat and an AK-47 aimed at Tsukune's head.

"Guys. What the hell do you think you're doing?" Said an eerily calm Roy.

"Sorry Roy, you know we have to check them to see if they're a threat." Said the voice they had heard on the radio. It was a woman with shoulder length purple hair, dark blue eyes. She was 5 foot 6 and had a perfect hourglass figure with D-cup breasts. Her choice of attire was a dark blue skin tight shirt covered by a purple unzipped hoody, she also had tight black jeans on with white sneakers on her feet. She currently held the dagger to Moka's throat. Holding the AK-47 at Tsukune's head was a skinny guy who looked scared shitless, he had plain brown hair and brown eyes, wearing blue jeans and a black t-shirt and black runners. The last guy, aiming their Desert Eagle at Yukari was a man wearing a tuxedo with a black dress shoes. All three had blood splashed on their clothes.

"Would I have brought them here if I thought they were a threat? They have no clue what's going on here. They have no reason to threaten us." Roy spoke diplomatically, trying to calm the situation down, while the three kids stayed silent, not wanting to provoke them. Roy then moved to whisper in the lady's ear. "We will need to keep an eye on the little one though. She's been bit. She understands what's going on but we still need to explain some things to them. Come on Tina. Just show them some compassion before what needs to be done." As he said this Tina's eyes focused on Yukari's hand and they softened a little. "Okay Roy, we'll let them in, just keep an eye on her and make sure they understand what needs to be done."

"Thank you Tina. They just need help." Roy said gratefully, as he turned around to the group Tina told the others to lower their weapons. "Come on you three, we have a lot to talk about."

***Page Break***

 **(Right after the explosion, With Mizore and Kurumu)**

"Mizore. Wake up. There's something really wrong here." Kurumu said shaking her friend. She kept trying for 5 more minutes but nothing seemed to be working. Only the steady breathing she could hear from the girl reminded her she was alive. Seeing that she wasn't going to regain consciousness any time soon she started trying to pay attention to their surroundings. First thing she noticed was they were in a classroom, second was that it was completely trashed, with tables and chairs tipped over and paper, pens and books scattered everywhere. Lastly was that Moka, Tsukune and Yukari were no longer with them. Paying even closer attention to the room itself, Kurumu could see drills, nail guns, and a whole lot of wood, leading her to come to the conclusion that this was a wood work class. That set off alarm bells in her mind as they didn't have a wood work class in their school, meaning they were in the human world. Deciding to just stay where they were for now, Kurumu focused on a not well known ability of the Succubus species, the ability to sense repressed lust, as all individuals have some form of lust it usually works as a type of sensing ability. What concerned her however was that there were only 15 people that she could sense. 'That's not possible, especially in a school. There should be hundreds of people' Kurumu thought to herself, stunned. Focussing back on her ability to see if she was wrong she noticed two presences racing towards their location. As they were about to run passed she opened the door to see who they were only for them to dive through the door, pushing her back in the room and then shutting it. Slightly annoyed at having been shoved, she was about to tell them off when she noticed the two not paying any attention to her, speaking between themselves as they grabbed some items and laid them on the teachers desk.

"You're one of those military nerds or closet otaku aren't you? You have to have some idea what to do with all these things, Hirano."

"I think I have some idea Saya." The chubby boy said as he got to work. Kurumu fed up with being ignored, cleared her throat hoping to get their attention. This incidentally startled Saya as she spun around with a quiet yelp.

"Eeek! How did you get in here?" The pink haired girl asked. As she asked that Kurumu finally took in the appearance of the two in front of her. The girl looked to be around 16 or 17 with large breasts and wide hips. She had long pink hair that looked like it would go down to her bottom if it wasn't separated into twin pigtails with a spikey fringe at the front, she also had brown bordering orange eyes. She was wearing what looked like a female uniform of whichever school they were in, which consisted of a short green skirt and white button up dress shirt, with a green cloth with a white trim draped over her shoulders and a grey bow in the centre of the chest. The boy however was more on the chubby side. He too looked to be 16 or 17. He had short straight black hair and thick rimmed rectangular glasses over his brown eyes. Kurumu guessed that he was wearing the male version of the school uniform, but it didn't look like any school uniform she had seen. The uniform consisted of a black button up jacket over a black shirt, he had the buttons done up, and black pants.

Saya, feeling a bit creeped out by the way the stranger in front of her was looking her over snapped at her. "What the hell are YOU looking at?! I asked how the hell you got in here. And for that matter who are you?"

Kurumu, deciding to rile her up a bit for barging into her when she entered the room, turned to the rotund male. "She always this loud?" "Only if she's annoyed." The 'closet otaku' replied.

"Shut it Hirano." Saya snapped at the boy. "Are you going to answer me?" she directed at Kurumu.

Kurumu held out her hands in a placating gesture. "Okay, okay. I was already in here when you came rushing into the room. Didn't you notice that you ran into someone? And by the way my name is Kurumu Kurono. My friend against the wall is Mizore Shirayuki. Pleased to meet you. Now that I've introduced myself, would you please tell me your names?" Kurumu replied with all the grace she has acquired through years of trying to seduce others. Both of them turned around and noticed the girl that was sitting against the wall behind them, unconscious. The boy entered a trance as he kept looking between Kurumu and Mizore, growing redder with each glance, while Saya turned back to Kurumu.

"Oh, I didn't realise she was there either. Well anyway, I'm Saya Takagi and that's Kohta Hirano. Hirano, say hi."

"…."

"Hirano?"

"…."

Saya turned to look at Kohta to see him blushing as he stared at Kurumu's breasts. "Hirano?! Stop looking at the new girl's boobs, Ero-otaku!" She screeched at him.

Kohta then flinched as he heard that and looked down. "Sorry Saya." He said sounding quite melancholic.

"Ah relax Pinky. It's alright to admire" Kurumu said to Saya striking a pose to emphasise her bust, before turning completely serious and staring at Kohta "But only occasionally and no touching. These puppies belong to someone else."

"Oh okay. Sorry anyway." Said a slightly more relieved Kohta.

"Don't call me Pinky!" Saya shouted at the blue haired Succubus.

"Saya, don't you think you should be quieter, what if those things…" Kohta began to say as he was interrupted by the sound of banging on the door, looking out the doors window the three saw a group of silhouettes standing on the other side of the door, just banging on it.

"Why aren't they just coming in?" Questioned an obviously confused Kurumu, "Are they stupid or something?" she continued as she started walking to the door.

"Don't open that door." Kohta whispered loudly before she even made three steps towards the door.

"Why not?" asked Kurumu. "Is something the matter?"

"Do you know what's going on around here?" Saya queried the girl.

"No, I only just woke up a minute before you guys got in here. That's why Mizore is still out." Kurumu said pointing at the purple haired girl.

Saya just nodded and turned to Kohta, "They must have gotten knocked out in the initial panic." "Well, those creatures outside are not human, something is happening around here, people have been going crazy and eating people. These people always get back up. Always. Only now they start attacking anyone they see. We've figured out from some of them falling down stairs that the only way to stop them is to do enough damage to the head. Any questions?" Kurumu shakes her head. "Good. Can you carry your friend? Cause we need to leave. Kohta would but he's got the only weapon."

"Yes, I can carry her. But don't we need to worry about them first?" The blue haired girl asked.

"Kohta, when the door gives way I want you to shoot each of them in the head, you got that?"

"Yes Saya."

"See, he's got it covered." Said a slightly smug sounding Saya, glad that he would listen to her without question.

"Actually Kohta-kun could you just cover my back? I'll take care of things." Kurumu asked smiling seductively.

"Sure. But how are you going to take them out? You don't have a weapon." The pudgy boy spoke with a light blush on his face. Saya seeing this scowled, despite not understanding why.

"With these." Was Kurumu's remark as she held up her newly revealed claws, turning back to the door as it burst down. Both Saya and Kohta stared in shock at the sight of the claws, wondering how they missed them as they were a foot in length from where her fingernails should be. Kurumu slowly walked towards the shuffling figures as Kohta snapped out of his daze and aimed his improvised nail gun at the targets, namely the walking corpses. When Kurumu reached the group she trust both hands forwards, piercing two of the dead in the head and then raking her hands out sideways in a spray of gore, gouging her claws half way through the heads of the two on either side of the first two. Ripping her claws out savagely, she watched all four bodies fall to the ground. Kurumu turned to her left and stuck her claws through the chin of a fifth one and heard small 'pfft' sounds coming from the nail gun in Kohta's hands and heard two more fall down. Still holding the one by the chin, she spun to her right slightly and threw it at the final corpse knocking it stumbling back and out an open window. Down below they heard a sickening squelch of it hitting the pavement. Turning around, she saw both Saya and Kohta staring at her with open mouths and wide disbelieving eyes.

"You have got to tell me how you did that!" Shouted a clearly excited Kohta once the shock wore off. This also snapped Saya out of her stupor. She then proceeded to scowl at both Kurumu and Kohta.

"She can tell us how she did that later. And she is going to tell us later," She added as an afterthought, with a pointed look at Kurumu, who just chuckled and looked away sheepishly. "But right now we need to get to another room. Bimbo, you pick up your friend. Fatso, Cover us while we travel. Anyone have an idea where we should head next?"

Kohta chose to speak up with something he had thought of, "We could head to Miss Marikawa's office to see if she's there. I know you said not to rely on teachers but if this is the way things are we'll need a medic to heal us if we get injured."

"Not bad Hirano, pretty smart thinking there." Saya complimented. "I guess all those RPG's had some use after all."

With that they started to race down the halls towards Miss Marikawa's office, a blushing Kohta in front clearing the way of any dead, Saya in middle and Kurumu trailing with Mizore over her shoulder, dispatching any straglers before they could follow the group.

***Page Break***

Saya, Kohta and Kurumu stopped to take a break right outside the office they had been looking for. As they were resting they noticed two groups of the dead heading towards them from both ends of the hall.

"I count six in front of us 100 meters away. How many you got Kohta?" Stated Kurumu, propping her friend against the trophy cabinet outside the office.

"We've got five on our six. 75 meters and closing." Kohta efficiently replied.

"Okay, I'll take out the six behind, concentrate your fire on the ones in front. Slow them down if you can't put them down." With that said Kurumu darted down the hall behind them and instantly decapitated the first zombie without slowing down. The next two were standing arms distance away to either side so she slid along the ground on her knees and cut off both of their legs at the knees with her claws then sprung up with a rising kick into the last ones chin, knocking it back. With that one a distance away, she quickly spun and drove her claws into the two incapacitated corpses, killing them instantly. She then turned around and walked over to the one she kicked as it was getting up. Upon hearing that she was getting close it tried to reach for her leg but she cut off its hand, then impaled its head, her claws digging into the ground. Standing up and turning around, she started jogging towards the others when she heard a scream.

"GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME!" At once Kurumu broke out into a sprint.

***Page Break***

"GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME!"

"Rei, who was that?"

"Why do you think I would know Takashi?"

"Well let's go check it out. Maybe we can help."

With that the two ran down the stairwell towards the source of the scream.

***Page Break***

"GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME!"

"Busujima-san, who do you think that was? They sounded scared." Said an airy voice.

"I don't know Marikawa-sensei. But I believe that came from where your office is." Was the calm and collected reply.

"Yes, I think it did. Should we go help them?"

"I think it would be for the best." The girl replied with an unseen smirk on her face as the two jogged across the court yard to the office.

***Page Break***

 **(Just before the scream)**

Kohta had a face of concentration on his face that did not quite suit him as he expertly fired of three consecutive shots that hit three corpses in the head, however, only one of the shots did enough to the brain to take it down. The other five kept shambling towards the two, now at 75 meters. Kohta went to unleash more nails at the targets when the nail gun clicked empty.

"What are you doing fatso? Keep shooting!" Saya berated the boy obviously frightened.

"It's empty."

"Well then reload it, Baka."

"But they're right behind you. See?" Kohta said lamely while pointing behind the girl. The office door had slid open to reveal an infected teacher standing behind her.

Saya let out a startled yelp and fell to the ground, scooting backwards and dropping the bag she had been carrying, scattering the items across the floor. She stopped retreating when she hit her back against the trophy cabinet. Desperate for anything to fend of the corpse she started throwing the trophies at it but it didn't even register them. Looking around she spotted a hand held drill that had fallen out of the bag. She was able to grab it and get it in position just as the corpse lunged at her. The drill whirred into life, drilling straight into the creature's brain. Too stunned to do anything but keep drilling she held up the creature like that and, in panic, screamed "GET THIS THING AWAY FROM ME!"

Kohta ran up to the girl and grabbed the corpse, throwing it away from Saya who was now shaking like a leaf, where it came to rest in a steadily growing pool of blood. As the creature came to rest, Kohta heard new sets of footsteps over the shuffling of the still advancing corpses. Jumping down the last few stairs were two of his class mates, Rei Miyamoto and Takashi Komuro. Arriving at the same time were two more ladies, one he recognised as the nurse, Shizuka Marikawa, and the other with the purple hair and boken, he didn't know. A few seconds later Kurumu also arrived on the scene, startling the new arrivals as they had never seen the girl before.

"Introductions later. Killing now." Stated an agitated Kurumu.

"I have to agree with the girl." Stated the calm girl with the practice sword, eying off the girls claws.

"I got the one on the left!" Said Rei as she darted after the one she called. Which she proceeded to stab in the head with the sharp end of a broken broom handle.

"I call the one beside it." Takashi said as he raced after his child-hood friend. Takashi, lacking the finesse of his female friend, simply smashed it in the head with a baseball bat, splitting its skull and mashing its brains.

"I will take the two on the right." Stated the ever composed sword user as she walked towards her intended targets. Using more speed or finesse than either Rei or Takashi, she raised her boken and brought it down rapidly on her foes domes, killing them both instantly.

"I guess that means I got middle. Lucky me" Groused an annoyed Kurumu. Kurumu just decided to stab it through the eye with her claw. That however got the attention of everyone who hadn't seen them yet.

"Woah. Those are awesome. How are those not breaking?" asked Rei, hoping it was possible to replicate what she saw as regular, if very long, nails.

"Looks like kitty has claws." Came the smart arse remark from Takashi.

"Trust me sugar. I am far from being a kitty" Kurumu purred sultrily, stroking under his chin after retracting the claw.

"Then why did you purr just now?" Came an almost deadpan comment from the sword user.

"For added effect." Kurumu replied, unfazed that someone called her out on a technicality, still with one finger under Takashi's chin, who looked understandably nervous.

"Not that this flirting isn't interesting, but shouldn't we be getting into the office while we have a reprieve?" Rei said, sounding quite agitated by what was going on in front of her.

"Not flirting, but you're right. Let's get inside and we'll introduce ourselves in there." Kurumu then turned around and started walking away with a sway to her hips.

"Yeah right, not flirting my arse." Rei mumbled to herself.

"Sweetie, you would know if I was flirting." Kurumu shot back, having obviously heard the muttered comment. "Besides I'm already interested in someone else, and I know they're alive in all of this. I just know it."

"Whatever. Come on Takashi." Rei said as she dragged her friend along. The sword user just shook her head, chuckled and followed after everyone else.

***Page Break***

We now see all 8 of the newly formed group huddled around a desk looking blankly at a television which is currently showing static. Just a few seconds ago it was a news report, live from the Tokonosu Park. The group were shocked by just what they learned.

"Okay. So apparently this epidemic is world-wide. We're screwed." The always eloquent Takashi summed up.

"Don't forget that these things don't go down until their brains mush. That's important too."

"Right, can't forget that."

Saya then stood up from her position directly in front of the television and turned to the group, placing her hand on the desk. "So, whose got any ideas about how we're gonna handle ourselves in this situation?"

"Well we could always just find a good amount of food and wait for them to decay. It's almost summer so a body would usually take only two months to waste away." Said the air-headed nurse, this being the smartest thing she's said all day.

"So there is a brain in that head of yours Marikawa-sensei. But I'm sorry to say that we shouldn't put our hopes in that theory. These are walking dead people, they're already defying all medical knowledge. So we have to assume that any normal medical knowledge won't apply to them. All except destroy the head, destroy the brain. At least until we can prove otherwise." The pink haired genius rebutted the teacher's idea. "Okay, any other bright ideas?"

"Well, I don't know about any of you, but I need to find my mother, she works in a primary school so she should have been there when this went down, my Dad is still overseas though, so there is nothing I can do for him." Takashi spoke first, clearly worried about his parents. From there everyone gave their opinions.

"I agree with Takashi. I need to find my parents too." Rei.

"Both of my parents are overseas on work, so I'll just stick with them to lend a hand." Kohta.

"My only friend is in the army, I'm not sure where she's stationed but I think it's nearby. She can find us when she's ready. I'll stay too." Shizuka

"My parents would be at the estate, that's where they always are." Saya said bitterly. "What about you Kurumu, Saeko-san?"

"My father is overseas as well. He was training in a dojo in America." Saeko.

"Me and Mizore came here with our friends, both of our parents are far away from here. So I just need to find them. There in the city somewhere. I can sense it."

"Don't you mean 'feel' it?" questioned Saeko.

"No, sense." Was the cryptic reply.

"Okay that just raises another question. Just who are you? You still haven't introduced yourself to the rest of us." Saeko badgered Kurumu.

"Okay, what do you want to know?" Kurumu asked, hoping she wouldn't have to say too much. She just knew she would have to though.

"Well, first off I would like to know the name of such a skilled fighter. Second, what did you mean 'sense'? Lastly, what was with those claws you had before?"

'Shit! I knew they were gonna ask about that.' Kurumu thought to herself before sighing in resignation. "Well, first off, as Kohta and Saya over here know, my name is Kurumu Kurono and my friend lying unconscious on the floor over there is Mizore Shirayuki. As for your second and third questions, they're kinda connected and complicated at the same time."

"What do you mean? Is it something you can teach?" asked Saeko, eager to find a new skill to make her stronger.

"No, I can't teach it, it's an inborn ability. An ability of my species."

"What do you mean 'your species'?" Rei interrupted Kurum with her question.

"I was getting to that!" Kurumu hissed. "If you'll let me finish, I am not human. I'm a monster."

Before she could continue she was interrupted again, this time by Kohta, "Don't say that about yourself, you're a very beautiful young woman."

This time Kurumu just sighed "Thank you Kohta, but I wasn't meaning it in a derogatory sense. I meant it in the literal sense. I am a succubus, what you saw was only a partial transformation."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Are you telling us you are a mythical creature that seduces men? Don't be ridiculous. That's about as true as saying vampires and werewolves are real." Scoffed a disbelieving Saya, her logical reasoning refusing to accept monsters as reality.

"Actually…" Kurumu started then trailed off, making Saya face palm.

"Then prove it." Saya challenged. Kurumu, never one to back down from a challenge allowed her purple wings and tail to show, along with bringing out her claws. She then lifted off the ground and hovered just below the roof.

"Is this enough proof?" Kurumu said with a smug smirk on her face at the shocked expressions on everyone's faces, even the always collected Saeko. With that she descended to the ground and hid her succubus traits. "So how did you like my true form?"

"That. Was. AWESOME!" Crowed Kohta.

"You're alright with me as long as you don't try to seduce the two idiots of our group. We need them fighting fit." Stated Saya diplomatically.

"Actuall, we succubus only charm men until we find our chosen one. We do this so we can ensure our species survival. I for one, have found my chosen one, so neither of them have anything to worry about." Kurumu assured Saya while pointing at the boys.

"By the way boys, don't look too far into anything that could be flirtatious, it is just how I am. We succubus stick with the one man once we have found our chosen one. Women on the other hand are fair game to us." The second she said that both Takashi and Kohta fell out of their chairs from their noses bleeding.

"Hehe, I knew they would have a funny reaction." Kurumu said while giggling to herself. She turned to see the girls blushing too and said "What?"

"Were you just messing with the boys or were you serious?" Saeko asked unsure which she would prefer.

Kurumu just shrugged and replied with a coy smile, "I don't know, but purple is one of my favourite colours." Then proceeded to lick her lips. Further making the girls around her blush. Surprisingly enough, Shizuka was the only one unaffected by her comments.

"Be quiet cow tits." Said a quiet voice. One that no one except Kurumu recognised. Everyone looked around until they noticed someone sitting at the table right beside Kurumu. This startled everyone as they hadn't noticed her sit down.

"Ah Mizore, how nice of you to wake up. Now I don't have to carry your ass everywhere." Kurumu replied, for once completely unfazed by Mizore's sudden entrance. Unlike Kurumu however, the others looked slightly unnerved that someone was able to join the conversation without being noticed.

"How did she get there?" Saya asked the question on everyone's mind. Kurumu just looked at Mizore, looked back at the group, and said, "She's probably been here for a few minutes. She tends to do that a lot. I don't think she even realises how sneaky she is."

"I'm right beside you, you know. Stop talking as if I'm not here." Mizore said with a childish pout. Slightly annoyed by her friends antics. "But yes, I woke up after the T.V went blank, and I've been sitting here since Kurumu was showing off. I sat down as she was in the air."

"Oh, that would explain it, you did it while we weren't looking. Hang on, wait. Does that mean you knew your friend isn't human?" Saya said, being the smartest in the room. Mizore just nods. "Does that mean you're a succubus too?" This time she shook her head with a small 'no'. "Are you something else then?" Another nod. "Come on. Don't make me guess."

At this Mizore lets out a small sigh, sends a glare with no real heat at her friend and says, "You just had to show off your abilities, didn't you, cow tits?" Kurumu fires the same glare back at her. "I am what is known as a Yuki-Onna, a snow woman."

"Do you mean those women who live in the mountains and kidnap lost men during snow storms? That sounds like fun!" Cheers the bubbly nurse. The others just look at her with a deadpan expression, even Mizore, the one whose species does that.

"You are a strange woman. But yes, my species has been known to do that. We only do it as our species is dwindling due to a small window of fertility. Once we reach a certain age, we can no longer conceive children, this is usually early twenties, but it can change with individuals. A majority of our partners are willing though."

"You said most." Pointed out Saya.

"What do you expect? We're Youkai. We don't have the same social standards as most humans. We don't like it, but see it as a necessary evil for the survival of our race. Although we tend to mate for life. We stick to one male, like glue. I have already found mine." Mizore defended her species. This did not go over well with Kurumu, however.

"And you will not get him, frostbite. He's mine."

"Bring it Boulder boobs. May the better Me win."

"Yeah….Hey, no way. I'll win."

"Not that this argument isn't riveting. Aren't we getting away from the point here? Kurumu-san was still explaining some things, and while we're at it, could we please get a run-down of your abilities Mizore-san? We'll need to know if we're going to survive out there." Saeko politely reminded the two of the previous conversation. At this point both Kohta and Takashi got up off the ground and rubbed the blood from their noses in unison. Both Kurumu and Mizore nod at the purple haired girl. Kurumu chose to go first considering she was almost done.

"So yeah, you already know that I have extremely sharp claws and can fly. But in addition to those I can charm weak willed men to do whatever I want, it even works on some of the more sexually open women. I tend to not use that unless it will help me survive though, I prefer to fight out my problems."

Kurumu paused to think of what she was going to say next. "Also, before when I said I can sense that my friends are in the city that is because I can sense repressed lust. Opposed to what people think, everyone has repressed lust, the amount does not change very much, some who are very open about their lust, like massive perverts, tend to have a lesser amount, while those who seem conservative usually have a lot of pent up sexual feelings."

At this, Kurumu gestured to the purple haired sword user. "Take Miss Busujima over here. She has the highest amount of repressed lust here, mostly because she's able to control the emotions she shows. And as everyone has their own level of lust, I can memorize it if I spend enough time around them, so I can usually locate them, or at least people with the same levels as them. Usually the radius of the sensing isn't that far because otherwise I would get a massive headache from the feedback. But with the levels I'm familiar with, I can sense much further."

Kurumu stopped her explanation to make sure everyone understood what she was saying, to see mostly blank faces from everyone except Saya and Mizore. "*sigh* Saya, can you explain it in a way these idiots will understand? Since you seem to be able to understand it."

"*sigh* I guess I can, but seriously, you don't have to be a genius to get this. Alright, listen up. Cause I don't wanna have to repeat myself. Long story short, Kurumu can sense your lust and therefore track people. You got that?!" She stated just a few marks below shouting.

"Geez Takagi. You don't have to be so loud. We're right here. But yeah, I think we got it, is that how you know your friends are alive somewhere in the city?" Takashi questioned Kurumu while replying to Saya, hoping to get her to quiet down without annoying the girl. "Humph!" So much for that.

"Yeah. I can sense they're somewhere there. They're not moving from wherever they are but they're alive. Those dead things don't have any lust in them.

"Interesting. But I agree with Komuro-san. Could you please tell us a little about your abilities? I'm sorry but getting to know you as a person will have to wait until we're in a more secure location. For that we need to leave before night fall." Saeko Busujima lightly proded, to which Mizore just nodded with a light smile on her face.

"I understand perfectly Busujima-san. However, I think it would be easier to show you what I can do. Please stay back, it might get a little chilly." As the Yuki-onna said this, she also stood up from the desk and walked a few meters away. As they watched, the room dropped a few degrees and the purest ice they had ever seen started forming on her hands rapidly. After 3 seconds she was left with thick claws made of ice about as long as her forearm. She then proceeded to swing her left hand down at one of the tables that were not being used. The claws sliced straight through the 4 inch thick desk like paper. She then shocked the group further by pointing her arm in the direction of one of the halves of the desk, and it slowly started to become encased in perfectly clear ice.

Thinking she was done, Kohta was about to say something when she held up her hand to silence him. For the next few seconds, nothing happened. Then, out of her body, ice started to form a completely clear exact copy of her, claws and all. The copy then walked over to Mizore and stole her lollipop and walked back a few feet. So as punishment Mizore formed shards of ice and threw them at the copy destroying it, then she caught her lollipop, letting the clone crumble into shards that quickly disappeared, leaving no trace. She then just stood the smirking at Kurumu because her display caused more of a reaction. And by more of a reaction, there was no reaction at all. Just stunned staring.

"Now who's showing off Frostbite?" Kurumu said snidely. Mizore just flipped her friend and rival off.

"That was fucking cool!" Shouted both Kohta and Takashi at the same time. Neither one of them realising the irony in their words.

"So are those all of your abilities?" Saya asked, trying to think of a way that both Kurumu and Mizore would be best put to use in the groups' survival.

"Basically. My powers over ice stem from the ability to use moisture in the air and make it cling to a surface while freezing. Otherwise it is just shapeless, kinda like a blizzard." Mizore replied, adding a bit of extra information to help out.

"What are you thinking Takagi?" Takashi asked his other childhood friend.

"I was just thinking of how we could best use all of our skills to get out of the school. I hate to admit it, but right now, Shizuka and I are defenceless right now so we'll have to count on all of you. So I think it would be best if we stuck to a sort of formation while moving. Since Kurumu and Saeko obviously have fighting experience they should be at the front, based on what I saw, they are the most efficient at taking down those things. What about you Mizore? Are you a good fighter?"

"I can fight, but I'm more of a long range fighter with my ice shards and freezing people. I'm not quite as good up close as Kurumu." Mizore replied to Saya's question.

Saya just nodded. "Okay then, I just worked it out. Saeko and Kurumu should take the lead, clearing away the ones in front of us, then it would be Shizuka and myself in the middle with both Rei and Kohta on either side of us, lastly it would be Takashi and Mizore trailing up the back."

Saya then paused to take a breath. "Rei, you would be best at taking out any that appear without warning in the middle of the group and Kohta would be a support taking out the creeps from a distance. Try to thin the herd if you can. Takashi, since you don't have any formal training you would just be taking out any stragglers, and Mizore, since you can handle both up close and distance attacks, you'll be helping both Takashi and Kohta. Does anyone have a problem with this?"

When all she got were a round of head shakes she said, "Good. We should probably get some rest before we head out. So drink some of the water we found in the closet and sit back for a while, in ten minutes we'll need to leave." As she said this everyone stood up to stretch a bit then wondered off to their own section of the room. A few minutes later, Kurumu looked up with a thoughtful look on her face.

"Sorry guys. But how are we going to get around? I doubt we're going to walk all over the city."

"Shit. I knew I was forgetting something." Saya cursed herself under her breathe.

"We could always take my car." Came the airy voice of the nurse.

"Will it fit all of us?" Kurumu asked.

"Well." Unbidden an image flashed into her head of her car. It was a little yellow two door, with barely enough room for 4 people, let alone 8. "No. Sorry, it won't. I'm really sorry."

"That's alright Marikawa-sensei. We could take the Kendo club minibus. The keys are on the hook." Saeko pointed at the wall beside the door as she said this. There on the wall was a group of hooks, with only 2 sets of key still on there, obviously empty from all the teachers trying to flee in their cars.

"Good idea Busujima-san. It should still be in the parking lot. Now we just need to get there." Kurumu praised, causing an unseen light blush to spread across the sword user's face. "I think we've rested enough, don't you Saya, let's get ready to make a break for it."

"Alright, but remember to stick to the formation. It should allow us to watch each other's backs."

With that said Takashi and Kohta started removing the barricade from the door while the rest got ready to go.

***Page Break***

Walking down the hallways had been mostly quiet for the first 5 minutes of the trip to the front doors of the school, just as the group was approaching a set of stairs they heard the sounds of fighting. Without thinking, Takashi, Rei and Saeko broke into a sprint, leaving the others behind to go help.

"Stay in formation!" Kurumu whispered as they ran passed her, but none of them paid any attention. Turning around, Kurumu said "Come on, let's go make sure they don't get hurt." And with that they remaining five ran after their friends.

By the time they got to the stairs they were just in time to see their three friends leap into action to save their fellow students from the dead. Rei stabbing the first one in the head and throwing it over the stairs railing into another down below. Knocking them both back down to the bottom where the second one split his head open on the floor. Takashi just brutally smashed in the skull of another one that was closing in on the other group. However, Kurumu was stunned by the grace with which Saeko vaulted over the railing did a twirl while splitting open the heads of two more and then perfectly landing in a crouch as they fell to the floor with a wet thud. Seeing such elegance and perfection made Kurumu blush in a way she thought only Tsukune could make her. Her thoughts however were much simpler, 'Oh my, I think I came a little.'

Shaking her head of those thoughts, she walked down the stairs slapping both Takashi and Rei in the back of the head. "Don't run off like that again. We would have all helped, but we need to stick together. That means you too Saeko." Then she turned to the new people and saw there were three guys and two girls. "Now that that's out of the way. Hi, my name Kurumu, pleased to meet you. Would you like to come with us?" The five teens all looked at each other, then a guy holding a baseball bat nodded his head with a small "Yes please". With that encounter over, the group moved down the stairs and stopped at the top of another, this time much larger, staircase. This staircase lead into the foyer of the school, right beyond the doors was the car park. The group had stopped because the entire ground floor was filled with the dead students and teachers.

Takashi frowned at the sight of this. "How are we supposed to get passed all of them?"

Kurumu was about to speak when she felt Saya tug on her sweater vest. Without looking at her she sighed and said, "Go on Saya, I know you want to tell him."

"Tell me what?" Takashi askes, looking to Saya.

"These things have dead senses. From what I can tell the only sense that still works is their hearing."

"How do you know this?"

"They don't react to any other stimulus. We threw wet rags at one and it didn't even flinch. It didn't even realise it was walking into a locker when it tried following a sound." Saya said, explaining an experiment she had conducted on the dead.

"Would you care to test this theory then?" Takashi asked. When seeing her look uncertain, he just nodded and said "I didn't think so." Suddenly, Kurumu stood up and started walking down the stairs, only to be stopped when Mizore grabbed her sleeves with a worried look on her face.

"Be careful."

"Don't worry, I trust Saya's theory." With that she gently pried her sleeve away and crept down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs she stopped to look back at the two groups, held her finger to her pink lips, took a deep breathe, and continued walking. She moved slowly, making sure that she wouldn't bump any of the horde, the group holding their breath, until she was standing in the middle of it. As she came to a stop, one of the recently departed students started to walk in her direction. Thinking she had been detected, her breath hitched in her throat, only for it to continue pass her. 'They really can't see us, that's lucky,' Kurumu thought to herself. To the group at the top of the stairs, Kurumu really stood out. Her blue hair and healthy skin a stark contrast to the predominately dark hair colours and grey skin of those around her. Kurumu, looking down at her feet, noticed a white sneaker with splotches of blood on it. It seemed to have fallen off a student in their struggle to escape. Squatting down, she picked it up with one hand then stood back up. Waiting a few seconds to make sure she had enough room, she drew her arm back and tossed the shoe. It flew through the air where it made contact with a locker down one of the halls, resulting in a loud clang that rang into the foyer. The group watched in silence as the horde moved off in the direction of the sound and passed the shoe, lacking the depth perception to know where exactly the sound was. Seeing the mass had moved off Kurumu waved the two groups down the stairs as she turned and headed for the doors, opening them silently as her group finally made it to the doors. Thinking they were home free, she turned around to look for any minibus, hoping it was the one they were after. As she spotted one and was about to whisper to Saeko, who had stopped beside her, to ask if that was the one, she heard a loud clang of metal hitting metal and spun around to see one of the other group's members holding a pole they were using as a weapon and cringing. Realising the boy had accidentally hit the railing to the stairs, she turned to gesture everyone to hurry up. Only to be cut off as Takashi shouted "RUN!"

At that command all hell broke loose. The herd that had wondered off before turned around and started to head back, while every single infected individual in the car park turned to look at the entrance. Realising every single one of those things knew where they were, Kurumu raised her voice and shouted, "Everyone, hurry to the bus, it's over there." As she pointed close to the school building, to the right of where they were.

Even running as fast as they could, they were not able to make it to the bus before the infected started to stumble into their path. Kurumu and Saeko, being at the front, started to clear a path. As they were nearing the bus, one student had stumbled near to Saeko, only for a shard of ice to pierce the side of its head. Saeko, hearing the body hit the ground, spun around and saw the ice, looking up she locked eyes with our resident ice youkai, and mouthed 'thank you' to her with a nod added in. Mizore just nodded back and continued firing ice shards into the approaching infected. Up the back of their group, Saya and Takashi were having a little argument.

"Why are you both so stupid? You just had to yell. Some of them may not have heard, now every single one in the school knows where we are!" Saya shouted at her friend.

"They would have heard the others moving off. Even if the ones on the other side of the school did here, we'll be gone before they get here." Takashi argued.

"Well we won't kno-AH!" Saya started to reply before she was cut off as a nail sailed past her face and into the head of the infected that was about to grab onto her. Looking to her left she saw Kohta aiming the nail gun in her direction. "Hirano, how dare you interrupt me!?"

At Saya's reprimand, Kohta just rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and said "I don't know why I would interrupt you Takagi. I love your voice."

Saya just blushed and shouted back at the boy "Don't say such stupid things and get a move on to the bus. Baka."

The love-struck teen just hang his head for a second before shaking it and continuing to fight.

Back at the side of the bus Kurumu and Saeko take up a position on either side of the door to defend those getting on. The first to get to the bus was Shizuka, she went straight into the driver's seat considering she was the only one who knew how to drive. Next was Mizore and Takashi. Mizore stood beside Kurumu and started firing ice shards at the infected that were closing in, while Takashi got straight on the bus. Looking out the window, Takashi saw Saya and Kohta running with the group they had rescued. As they were running they passed by an infected that lay on the ground, unmoving. As the last boy from the other group was passing by, it lashed out with its arm and grabbed his leg, tripping the boy. As he lay on the ground the creature pulled itself over the boy and bit into his shoulder. As the boy screamed out in pain, one of the girls from his group turned around.

She saw him lying there with one of the things on top of him while he screamed as more of them started to tear into his flesh. Screaming at the top of her lungs she called the boy's name. "SHINJI-KUN!" **(1)** and began to run back to him. Seeing this, Saya called back to her. "Just leave him, there's nothing you can do for him now." However the girl kept running, tears streaming down her face, straight into the arms of the infected where they began to bite her all over as she screamed.

As this was the first time seeing this up close, Saya looked like she was about to vomit, with her own eye leaking tears. Kohta, not really knowing what to do, but knowing they were not safe out in the open, just put his arm around her shoulder and started ushering her along. Saya, not really sure if she was comfortable with being touched, but not caring enough to do anything about it just followed his lead, still crying. Once Kohta was sure she was moving, used his other hand to make sure no infected were getting close with his nail-gun. By the time he and Saya got to the bus, the last two were on and Kurumu, Mizore and Saeko were waiting on them, occasionally striking down one of the creatures if they got too close.

As they were getting on the bus Kurumu just patted the distraught girl on the shoulder, while Kohta got in behind them. Now that everyone was on, Saeko and Kurumu got on the bus while Mizore covered their entrance. Once they were in, Kohta did the same for Mizore. Just as they shut the doors to the bus and we about to tell Shizuka to go, they heard a shout coming from the entrance to the school building. Looking over they saw a group of seven students and one teacher racing over to the bus.

"Wait a second Shizuka-sensei. There are more survivors."

"That's Shido-sensei!" realises Shizuka. This revelation startles Rei, who quickly becomes angry when she sees the nurse is right.

"We don't have to save them Takashi. Let's just go!" Rei tells Takashi. He doesn't look happy about that and questions her.

"What are you talking about Rei?"

"I said we don't have to save them! We should just leave them here to die!" Rei shouts, shocking everyone with how emotional she sounds, believing her to just be scared of the infected gaining ground on the vehicle, they decide to leave her be. "If you let him on, you'll regret it." She then mutters so lowly that only Takashi can hear her.

While this fight had been taking place, the infected were quickly closing in on the teacher and his group. When one of the students fell over and sprained his ankle and grabs the teacher's pants, Shido sees this as an opportunity to secure his own survival.

"Shido-sensei. I sprained my ankle. Please, help me." The student pleads. Shido just looks at the boy with a cruel smirk on his face.

"Oh, poor boy." The teen's face lights up with hope at the start of the sentence. "This world is no place for the weak. Only the strong can survive now." Only for it to fade with the rest, just as a foot crashes with his face, breaking his nose and the glasses on his face, sending glass into his eyes.

The resulting screams drew the attention of all the remaining infected which converged on the downed boy. Shido turned around, fixed his tie with a self-satisfied smirk on his face, and walked away at a slow pace. Upon getting to the bus, the despicable man plastered a feigned expression of sadness on his face. When the group of students he was with saw that they were missing a person turned to their teacher.

"Shido-sensei? Where's Tenora **(2)**?" Asked a girl with short messy orange hair, named Yuki Miku.

Shido, still acting the part, looked down in fake sadness. "I, I couldn't save him. He fell while running and those monsters were on top of him straight away. I tried to pull him out but they were too heavy. He told me to run or they would get me too. I should have stayed closer to him, maybe I could have saved him." This speech seemed to work on most of his group, as each of them attempted to sooth their teacher's 'suffering' with words of encouragement and support. Takashi's group however did not look too convinced, Yuki too looked suspicious of the man.

As Takashi shut the doors he shouted to Shizuka.

As she sped off towards the school gate, Rei looked at Takashi darkly and said, just above a whisper, "I said you'd regret letting him on. Now just watch as he destroys everything."

 **Chapter Finish**

 **A.N**

 **(1) I have no idea what this guy's name is and he was only there for a short time so I don't think it really matters.**

 **(2) This guy wasn't actually given a name so I decided on one.**

 **So that's this chapter done. It took me a while to actually sit down and right anything, but once I did, everything just flowed and it's my longest chapter so far on just shy of 10,000 words. Please remember to favourite and follow, plus leave a review to tell me how I'm doing.**

 **As always.**

 **Show me that smile.**

 **Fang out.**


	5. Chapter 5

**A.N: After this chapter you may be a little confused about the timeline that is taking place. Just bear with me and you will get it soon. Most likely a later chapter. After this chapter though. You might not be seeing much of Moka or Tsukune or Roy's group, at least for a little while.**

 **Also, it has been a little over a year since I last wrote anything for this story. So I apologise for the timeframe and it should be a little more regularly now.**

"People talking"  
'People thinking'  
 **"Monster form talking"  
'Monster form thinking'**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Rosario Vampire or Highschool of the Dead. Those rights go to Akihisa Ikeda and D** **aisuke Satō** **/Shōji Satō respectively.**

 *****Story Start*****

 **(With Moka, Tsukune and Yukari)**

Moka, Tsukune and Yukari were all lead into a small sitting room. Upon entering the room they all realised that the building must be a dentist's office. There were picture and diagrams of teeth all over the place. Against the wall furthest from where they entered was a long oak receptionist counter. None of the other members of Roy's group were in the room apart from Roy and Tina. As they were looking around the place, Roy looked back at the three teens and chose this time to speak up. "Take a seat you three. We have a lot to talk about." The three quickly located a vacant seat and dragged them together before sitting on them.

Once they were settled Tina shut the door and Roy pulled up a chair and sat in it in reverse, proceeding to stare at the group. Appearing to size them up. After a few minutes of silence they all started to get a little nervous and started fidgeting. As Tsukune was about to ask a question, Roy cut him off with a question of his own. "Do you know what's going on here?"

Tsukune, taking the initiative just shook his head and replied "Not exactly we woke up in an alley only a couple minutes before you found us, everything was just, like this."

Roy looked to be contemplating this for a few seconds. "Well that answers my next question of why not. Before we get into proper introductions or personal questions I think you guys need to know what you're up against. Not too long ago the dead started walking, no one knows how or why it started, just that dead people started coming back and eating everyone, the only way to put one down for good is to destroy the brain. Taking off the head stops the body, but the head will still be able to bite if anything goes in its mouth. So even after decapitation, watch out. We know for certain that anyone who gets bitten, even a little, will die and come back as one of them." As he finished saying this, he let his eyes soften as the group stared at him in shock and then, with tears forming in their eyes, Moka and Tsukune looked towards their youngest friend. What broke their hearts further was the resigned look on Yukari's face. Realising her friends were looking at her she looked up at them and tried to give a comforting smile.

"Guys, it's alright. I knew the second Roy started talking to us. I've already come to terms with it. Moka, you should know with how everyone at school was raised that we have all come to terms with the possibility of death. None of us are really scared of it. It's a part of life." At this, seeing her putting up a brave front, both Tsukune and Moka started crushing the girl in a massive hug. Both Roy and Tina who were silently listening in on the conversation were horrified to hear that a little girl went to a school where everyone was raised knowing death. However, they kept to themselves letting the three grieve a little for the soon to be departed friend.

After a few minutes the three friends got a hold of their emotions enough to continue, although they all had red bloodshot eyes from crying. Roy seeing that they were waiting for him to start asking his questions, took a deep breath to compose himself.

Looking at the group, he realised he didn't know any of their names. So he figured that would be a good place to start. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to introduce yourselves?"

The group took on a look of realisation. "Oh right. In the rush we didn't tell you who we were. Well, I'm Tsukune Aono. The girl with the pretty pink hair on my left is Moka Akashiya, and on my right is Yukari Sendo. Pleasure to meet you. Despite the circumstances." Tsukune spoke up for the group.

Roy and Tina just nodded in response and donned a serious expression.

"Now, we need to talk about what you two did out there. A teenage girl rushing past us at the speed you did is not normal, but washtubs appearing out of nowhere is even less so." While speaking he noticed Yukari and Moka flinch when he said "normal" so he tried to assure them. "There's nothing wrong with whatever it is, we just need to know what you can do if we're all going to survive. You can trust us."

"Can we?" Moka asked hesitantly. "You have no idea how many of you people have turned their backs on us when they find out the truth."

Roy looked confused when she said this. "Americans? I know a lot of us are bigoted but that's the reason I moved here. Both Tina and I came here together. We're a lot more open minded than others."

Still looking hesitant, they looked at Tsukune for support. "Sorry girls, it's your secret. I can't help you here. I'll support whatever you choose."

Moka gestured for Yukari to lean in as she started a whispered conversation. "I'm sorry Yukari, but we're gonna have to tell them the truth about you. There's nothing believable we can tell them, not even a half-truth would explain it."

"It's alright Moka, I figured I'd have to tell them when I showed them."

Moka then turned to Roy and said "I won't be able to tell you the whole story right now, so I'll just stick to how I can fight. I have been trained since I was a very young girl. My father is very influential where I'm from and he wanted me to be able to protect myself. So I've spent most of my life learning how to fight, but mostly focusing on speed and strength. That's all I can tell you right now, for my own safety." As she finished she looked at Yukari and nodded at her, telling her it was her turn.

Yukari just sighed and said. "I'm a Witch."

"…"

"…"

"…"

"What?"

"So, you're a witch?"

"Yes."

"Aren't witches supposed to be uglier?" Roy asked

"ROY! Don't say something like that!" Tina shouted while slapping her friend on the arm.

"Hehehe, no it's okay Tina." Yukari said whilst giggling. "Generally we look no different to any other person. We are just depicted as ugly by human culture. Suits us perfectly fine, cause then they don't suspect normal looking people."

"Oh. Sorry about that though. But that would explain why a basin thingy fell out of nowhere. What else can you do with your magic?" Roy apologised.

Yukari just shrugged and looked at her hands in an aloof way. "Well, I can move things around, summon tarot cards along with those wash tubs. I can do pretty much anything if I have the spell for it. As long as I have my medium." As she finishes her explanation she points at her hat, while discretely motioning Tsukune and Moka not to say anything.

Roy just nodded and stayed quiet for a bit. After no-one said anything for a bit, Yukari looked down into her lap, deciding to ask one more question.

"How long do I have."

Roy, already knowing this question would come up, sighed sadly and said "I'd give you maybe two more hours. We'll leave you alone for now so you can spend the time with your friends."

Yukari just nodded in resignation, also appearing thankful for the time. However, Moka and Tsukune were tearing up again, having momentarily forgotten what would happen to their friend.

"Could you please leave a knife? You know why Roy." Yukari asked, to the shocked horror of her friends. Roy nodded and left a combat knife on the receptionist's desk.

As Roy and Tina walked out, they looked back at the scene of the three friends, two of which they wouldn't see again for the next few days. The third they would never see again.

***Page Break***

 **(1 and a half hours later)**

The three friends had moved onto the floor in the past hour. Yukari and Moka were currently leaning against the receptionist's desk with Tsukune sitting cross legged in front of Yukari.

"Moka, Tsukune. I don't want you to see me like one of those things. Promise me that when the time comes, and I start to turn, you will leave. I want you to promise me. I will do what needs to be done. I just want you two far away when it happens."

"We won't leave you Yukari. You're one of our best friends." Tsukune said forcefully. Moka nodded in agreement and added in a chocked up voice. "We don't know what we would do if we couldn't say goodbye."

"I'M NOT ASKING!" Yukari shouted. "I don't want you to see me like that." She repeated.

"We are not going. We will bury you. It's the least I could do for not reaching you in time." Tsukune said with a guilt ridden look on his face. "I'm so sorry Yukari. If I hadn't stepped in the pentagram we wouldn't be here at all." With this Tsukune put his face in his hands and started weeping for his friend. Only to look up in shock when he felt a small hand on his shoulder. Yukari had leant forward to rest her palm against his shoulder, Tsukune could already feel her hands going cold. She then gave him a sad smile as she leant back against the desk.

"It's not your fault Tsukune. I should have known something like that would happen. You weren't in full control of your body."

With this Tsukune looked up at his friend, tears streaming down his face. "Huh?"

"I should have insisted you stay out of the room. Your ghoul blood would have sensed a change in its progenitor and tried to get closer. You were going to move whether you wanted to or not." Yukari said, right before she started coughing violently, spraying blood onto the ground to her left. "I can feel it happening. If you're not going to leave, then please make sure I don't turn."

Tsukune tearfully nodded along with Moka who was sobbing uncontrollably by now. He then spoke softly, in a near whisper. "We love you so much, we will NEVER forget you. Will we Moka?" Moka just started crying harder and stood up, walking a few feet away, not looking at either of them. "Moka?" Tsukune prodded as he moved besides Yukari.

Moka just nodded before saying, in between sobs. "Nothing *hiccup* will ever be the same without you *sob*. I love you so much *weep*. We'll miss you." It was all she was able to get out before she became unintelligible through the tears. Yukari nodded with a soft smile on her face before pulling Tsukune closer to whisper in his ear.

"All of you have made me so happy since meeting you. I don't want to know how my life would have been without you. Be strong for eachother." She squeezed out before going into another fit of coughs, splattering blood all over the ground. She then hugged Tsukune and he hugged her back. "I guess this is goodbye. I love you both too." Then she started writhing, and coughing blood all over Tsukune's blazer while he continued hugging her, crying. Once the movement stopped he reached up to grab the knife and sat there holding it for a second. It felt heavier than he would have thought, the brown leather feeling odd in his hands. He then closed his eyes and positioned it at the base of Yukari's skull.

With a swift push the blade slid straight in with only miniscule resistance and a squelching grinding sound of it scraping bone and digging into flesh. Pulling the knife free from it fleshy sheath he opened his eyes and stared back into the vacant stare of his now deceased friend. Finally registering what he just did, he stood up and ran to the window while dropping the knife in the centre of the room. Leaning out he threw up the food that he had eaten for breakfast before coming to this place. Finally vacating his stomach he walked almost lifelessly back over to Yukari's cooling body and knelt down to close her eyes. Looking at her now, if it weren't for the slowly growing pool of blood at the back of her head, he could have almost convinced himself that she was just sleeping. Standing back up, he trudged over to his still weeping friend, he placed his hand on her shoulder. Feeling his hand on her shoulder she spun around and clung onto him with all her strength, crying onto his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and rested the side of his head on hers, no longer having the strength to cry. The two stood in this embrace for a few minutes before Tsukune felt Moka's sobs subside. After another three minutes they parted and looked at each other. It was only then, when her puffy red eyes looked into his, that she noticed something off. His eyes seemed lifeless. Like he was not fully there. She shook him slightly and spoke to him.

"Tsukune? What are we going to do now?" Upon hearing her voice, she noticed his eyes gain a spark again, giving her hope that he would recover. However when he spoke back, his voice had a distinctly hollow sound to it.

"For now, I just want to leave this place and bury Yukari. I think she would like a park." He started. But first, let's leave Roy a note. It's the least we could do since he helped us out." He then parted from Moka and searched the reception desk. Finding what he was after, a piece of paper, he grabbed one of the pens that all reception desks have for the patient/customer and quickly scribbled a note. He then walked over to the centre of the room and picked up the combat knife. Meandering over to the wall opposite the door he held the note to the wall and drove the knife into the top of it.

Picking up Yukari in a bridal carry he made his way over to Moka who was now by the window. "Let's just get going. I want to bury her soon." With these final words, Moka just nodded and vaulted out the window, Tsukune dropping down a few scant seconds behind her in the empty street. The two just looked at each other for a few seconds before walking down the street in the opposite way from where the Z-teens went. If anyone had been looking out the window they would have seen the two walk around a corner in the fading light of the sunset.

***Page Break***

 **(10 minutes later)**

"Hey Roy." Tina started, trying to get her long time friend's attention.

"Hmm." Came his non-committal grunt.

"Don't you think we should check on the kids? We haven't heard anything from them in a while." Tina said, concern lacing her voice. "What if the young one's turned?"

"I don't think we need to worry about that, but you're right. We should check up on them." Standing up from his seat he walked over to the door separating them from where they had left the three teens. Deciding to knock to let them know he was coming in he waited a few seconds for a reply. When he didn't hear one he grew concerned.

'What if Tina's right? What if she did turn and took out the other two. I have to check.' Grabbing his machete he turned the knob of the door and spoke out loud. "Kids, we're coming in." Slowly opening the door he immediately noticed three differences about the room. The first was the note pinned to the wall, the second was the slowly drying pool of blood in front of the desk, and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the complete absence of the three they had left in the room.

Making his way over to the note, he grabbed the handle of the blade and wrenched it free from the wall, freeing the note. Looking over the note he read it out loud for Tina's sake.

" **Hey Roy.**

 **Just wanted to thank you for all you've done for us. But we can't stay here. Too many painful memories now.**

 **Don't come after us. It's safer for you to stay where you are. We hope to see you again when this all goes away… if it goes away.**

 **Tsukune and Moka.**

 **P.S. Thanks for the knife, we made sure Yukari won't come back. But we won't be needing it anymore."**

Reading over the note a few more times in his head he shook his head and swore beneath his breath. "Stupid kids running off like this. Yeah, I hope to see you too." He then turned to Tina with a pleading look on his face.

"Oh no you don't. You've risked your life enough for one day. Besides, there's nothing you can do for them right now. From what you said they can take care of themselves." Tina paused to look at Roy's face, which had somehow morphed into a bastardised version of the puppy dog look. Scary as hell but it had the intended effect on Tina. "*sigh* Fine. I know you're going to go no matter what I say, just please promise me you'll wait until morning."

Roy broke into a smile. "Sure thing. Thanks Tina." As he practically skipped out of the room.

Tina just shook her head with an exasperated look on her face, talking to herself "Geez Tina. You're such a fucking push-over." She then followed her strange friend out of the room, turning back to frown at the pool of blood, shook her head once more and shut the door.

***Page Break***

 **(With Takashi's Group)**

As the school minibus hurtles across the school parking area it makes a lot of noise, attracting the dead towards them and in front of the bus. Shizuka slowed down once they she noticed this. However, Saya's commanding voice made her think otherwise. "Don't slow down. If you do we won't be able to clear the gate. They're already dead so it doesn't matter."

Shaking her head she did as told and picked back up speed repeating a mantra in her head. "They're not human, they're not people anymore, THEY'RE NOT ALIVE ANYMORE!" She finished with a shout, right as the minibus collided with the first deceased, a female student who appeared to have numerous bites over her body, mainly on her arms and legs. The terrible sounds of thudding and the snapping of bones filled the vehicle, turning all of the kids besides Saeko, Takashi, Rei and Kohta green. Picking up even more speed the vehicle smashed through the gate, causing the metal work to bend at odd angles.

Due to the speed they were going, when the bus turned left to head towards the city, the vehicle started to lift on one side. In a stroke of luck, they hit a rock big enough to jolt the minibus back onto all four wheels. Once they were one the road and away from the horde of the undead, even relaxed a bit and started looking around the confines of the vehicle at everyone else, trying to figure out who exactly survived.

Takashi started to list the people he knew of.

There was Tsunoda. He was one of the school bullies in Takashi's year, making him 17. Tsunoda was quite tall for his age, with brown hair with the top half dyed blonde. He also had brown eyes and wore the standard Fujimi academy uniform with the jacket unzipped.

Next was Yuuki Miku. She was a short girl, the same age as Tsunoda, with yellow eyes and light orange hair. She also wore the standard female Fujimi school uniform, however, hers was a lot looser around the top, showing a substantial amount of cleavage from her large bust.

He also recognised the two girls who sat beside each other. They were Kawamoto and Taniuchi. Kawamoto is a girl of medium height with a small bust. She has red hair, golden-brown eyes and wears the standard female uniform. Taniuchi is taller than Kawamoto by a few inches with dark blue hair. She has blue eyes and a pair of glasses perched on her nose, giving her a somewhat smart and innocent look. Her uniform is an exact mirror of Kawamoto.

The last one he recognises is Yamada. Yamada is a tall boy with black hair and brown eyes, wearing the male school uniform, without the addition of the black jacket.

The last two people, two males, he can't quite remember. One of them, 'K-something', had a sickly appearance, with pale skin, black hair and dilated eyes, making it impossible to determine the colour. The other boy was a tall boy with light brown eyes to go with his brown hair. Takashi thought his name was Miura.

One person in particular took a lot of interest the the two girls that he had never seen before. Shido's face split into a slimy grin while his eyes darted between the busts of the two new girls. Catching himself doing it, he wrenched his eyes away from their breasts and put on an admittedly charming smile. He never realised that Kurumu noticed his leering stare on her and Mizore, and discretely signalled her to be weary. Seeing the man walking towards her and Mizore, she hoped the man wasn't about to hit on her. However, as luck would have it, Saeko intervened.

"Shido-sensei, I am glad you and the other students made it out alive. What happened to that poor boy was unfortunate." The purple haired student spoke in an even monotone voice. Giving nothing away.

"Ah, Busujima-san, thank-you for your kind words, it is a shame that someone so young had their life cut tragically short. I take it you are the leader that got your friends out of the school unharmed?"

Saeko frowned at his question. "Actually Shido-sensei, we worked together to survive. If anyone tried to be too controlling in this early, none of us would have made it." The way Saeko had worded her response made it clear to Shido that she thought having someone impose themselves as a leader was a bad idea. Especially at this stage.

Shido showed a concerned frown on his face while on the inside he was smirking deviously. This would work perfectly with his plans.

"Oh, well that will not do. In this tough time we need a leader. Someone who is mature, courageous, intelligent. Someone who can shoulder the burden of looking out for the better of the group. Someone who-." Shido had started a speech when he was abruptly cut off by a sarcastic comment from Saya Takagi.

"And I suppose you are volunteering?"

"But of course. It is the only logical solution. While you are all no doubt mature for your age, you are still in your teens and don't have the experience. I, however, am an adult and a teacher. I am qualified to lead a group."

While Shido's argument was indeed very thought out, Saya saw a few flaws. Flaws that she made sure to draw attention to. "This isn't your average school trip and you have no tactical experience to help us survive, your method of survival would probably be to hole up until help arrives. In this situation Shizuka-sensei is just as qualified to lead a group."

"But Marikawa-san is the only one with sufficient medical training. She could not possibly handle the stress of treating wounds and making sure they don't occur in the first place."

It was at this point that Kurumu entered the conversation. Seeing as she was perhaps one of the most talkative of the group.

"That's fine. You can be the leader then." Shido smirked in victory, while the group she was with frowned, Saya was about to confront her about it when she continued. "Of that group" She said as she pointed down at the back of the bus.

Shido's smirk fell as Kurumu's new friends snickered. He decided to get back to the reason he had come to the front of the bus. "I'm sorry, I don't believe we've met before. My name is Koichi Shido. Pleasure to meet you."

Kurumu smirked at the man. He was good at supressing his intentions, but not his automatic libido. "Yeah, yeah. Names Kurumu Kurono."

Shido twitched at the disrespect, but otherwise didn't react. "And your friend?" He asked nodding to Mizore. "You two obviously don't go to Fujimi Academy, so how did you wind up on this bus?"\

Kurumu looked back at Mizore, asking a silent question. All she received was a nod. Letting out a sigh she turned back to the male teacher. "She's Mizore Shirayuki. We were visiting a friend in their class when this started. Got knocked out and were found by Kohta and Saya over here." She said nonchalantly while pointing at the two, sitting side by side.

Koichi nodded along with what she was saying, taking "discrete" glances at her chest. The man decided he needed to keep the conversation going if he was hoping to have a chance to win the girl over. "And which school do you go to? If you don't mind me asking."

"Does it matter?" Kurumu fired back instantly. Shido, realising he wasn't going to get anywhere with Kurumu, turned his attention to Mizore. Before he could so much as utter a single syllable a boy up the back gasped.

"What the HELL happened to the city?!" Yamada, a boy from Shido's group shouted out. Every eye turned to look out the windscreen, while Shizuka actually started to take in their surroundings, rather than focusing solely on the road. The city, which was once a spectacular sight to behold, was now littered with black smoke trails rising into the sky, evidence of a number of accidents. Looking around the vehicle, Shido realised he would not gain anything from trying to talk with the group right now, so he silently went to the back of the bus. Content to wait until things had calmed down before speaking up again.

***Page Break***

 **Later inside the city**

"Why did we come into the city?!" A boy from the bus cried, Miura, from Shido's group.

"Yeah, the place is probably crawling with those things! We should have barricaded ourselves inside the school until help came." Tsunoda agreed with the boy.

"And what would happen if help didn't come? What happens when you run out of food?" Saya countered to the boys.

"We still should have been asked what we wanted to do, before you all dragged us to the city!"

"You didn't have to get on the bus. What did you think we were going to do? Get on the bus and then stay in the school? Don't be stupid." Ah, Saya. Condescending as ever.

"Grrr, don't call me-." Tsunoda started with a growl before he was cut off by the bus suddenly grinding to a halt. Shizuka spun around in her seat with an angry look that seemed out of place on her.

"Will you all stop fighting?! I can't concentrate on driving with all this noise!"

Tsunoda stopped speaking for a few seconds, only shaking in what seemed to be poorly concealed anger. Finally bursting he pointed at Takashi and shouted. "I just can't stand this guy!"

Takashi seemed kind of annoyed by that statement and retaliated. "Me?! What the hell did I do?!"

This just seemed to annoy the boy further, to the point that he just rushed at Takashi. Something none of them expected was to see Rei Miyamoto slide in between the two with her broom handle ready to defend. Swinging her weapon forward she drove the blunt end into Tsunoda's gut, causing the teen to double over and spit out bile and saliva. Nothing happened for the next few seconds except for the blonde clutching his stomach, trying to gather his breath. That was until they heard clapping coming from the back. Turning their eyes to the back of the bus, everyone saw Shido stepping forward, still clapping slowly, almost mockingly.

"Very good teamwork Rei. Defending your friend from a perceived threat. Very well done. However, this just proves my point. We need a leader who can create order." Turning around to look at the group who came with him, with his back to Takashi's group, he continued speaking. "In order to survive, we need a strong dependable leader. I can promise you, I will do everything in my power to protect you all. None of you-."

It was at this point that Rei could take no more. Shido stopped his speech at the sound of the hydraulics in the bus door hissing, pushing it open. Rei then jumped from the vehicle, bypassing the steps with her weapon in hand. Takashi quickly made to follow her while everyone else just watched in silence. Takashi quickly caught up to his childhood friend and grabbed her wrist, stopping just in front of the entrance to a tunnel. She stayed facing away as he spoke.

"Where are you going Rei? Get back on the bus."

Rei just stayed facing away as she spoke. "I told you, you would regret letting him on." She said lowly. "I'm not staying on the bus with him!" She practically hissed the last word. Takashi just shook his head.

"Maybe. But we will both regret it if you don't get back on the bus." As he heard this he heard a loud rumble, like the sound of a large vehicle. It was getting closer. Everyone on the bus also looked up the road and noticed a large bus hurtling down the road towards the tunnel, crashing through cars and the like. Mizore noticed as it ran over a fire hydrant and thought she should try to stop it. She focused on the water that had sprayed all over the undercarriage and froze it, hoping to lock the wheels up. She only succeeded in stopping the front wheels as the back ones were simply moving too fast. She never noticed that she also froze some water on the ground in front of the front left tyre, causing it to slide. The momentum of the slide and the wheels suddenly seizing up caused it to spin to its side and start rolling.

Knowing there was no way to stop it now she ran to the door of the bus and shouted. "Takashi, Rei. Get out of there!"

The cry was enough to get Takashi to remember where they were and he quickly grabbed Rei before running backwards, into the tunnel.

Glancing backwards for a second was enough for Takashi to see the bus sliding and rolling, right behind them, with sparks flying in all directions. Just as the two entered the tunnel, the bus slammed to a stop at the entrance, completely blocking access to the tunnel. Turning around, both Takashi and Rei stared in dismay. They continued until they heard shouting coming from the other side of the bus. Not quite sure what they were saying, Takashi called out over the crackling flames that were now escaping the crashed bus.

"Guys! Is everyone okay?!"

"We should be asking you that Komuro-san! Are either of you hurt?" He heard the gentle voice of his purple-haired friend.

"No, Saeko, we're both fine. But we're trapped, how are we gonna get back?"

Saya, knowing the only place that both Rei and Takashi knew how to get to, answered for them.

"There's no way back to here from there, our best option would be to meet up at the police station on the other island, the one Miyamoto's dad works at." She called out. "We'll meet there at 7 o'clock, if not today, then tomorrow or the next."

"Right." Takashi confirmed. "But if we're not there two days from now, you have to leave."

"Don't worry, you'll make it." Saya rebutted, before continuing, leaving no time for a response. "There's no time to argue, the bus could blow at any moment. Get out of the tunnel now!"

"Right, we'll meet you there" He called to the pink haired girl, before turning to his friend. "Let's go." He finished before grabbing her hand and running towards the other side.

***Page Break***

 **(On the bus)**

"Go, Shizuka, we need to leave. We have to cross the bridge as soon as possible." Saya said, not looking away from the burning bus, and the tunnel her friend was separated in.

"Right." Was her only response, knowing that the girl didn't need or want any reassurances at the moment. She just eyed the road in front of her and slowly pulled away, gradually picking up speed. However, just as they were reaching 100 meters from the toppled bus, it suddenly exploded, causing everyone to jump, Shizuka to stop driving, and Saya to let out a startled yelp.

"NOOO!" Saya screamed, before rushing for the door to the bus. Saeko, however, blocked her path. "Let me out, I have to see, I have to make sure!" She cried to her new friend. Saeko, didn't budge. She just stood there before opening her mouth to speak.

"They made it out, you should know that tunnel isn't very long." She tried to reason with Saya.

"I don't care! I have to make sure!" Saya said stubbornly.

"Look around you Saya!" Saeko finally raised her voice. "There are infected people everywhere, heading to the sound of the explosion. If you go out there, you will die. I have faith that they made it out, why can't you?!" Saeko bellowed at the end.

"Because Takashi's my best friend!" She screamed back. "I have to know, I would never forgive myself if something happened to him and I did nothing!"

"But you do know! You're smart enough to know that Takashi is fast enough to make it out of that tunnel, Rei too." With that, all the fight seemed to just drain from Saya, who slumped into the chair beside the door.

"You're right." She sighed. "I guess I'm just worried. They'll be fine, they've got each other; they know this area better than the back of their own hands." Saya looked up at Saeko and gave a half-hearted smile. "Thanks Saeko."

As she looked at the other girl, she noticed she was looking around the bus. Trying to spot what she was looking at, she turned around and saw all the other students and Shido all staring at her.

"What the fuck are you all gawking at?!" She snapped at them, they all instantly averted there gaze, looking at anything they could find to appear like they weren't staring.

Saeko just shook her head at the idiots and looked back at Saya with a small smile. "It's alright Saya. They'll be fine." Turning her head back to Shizuka she continued. "You can go now Marikawa-sensei. We still need to cross the bridge."

***Page Break***

 **(Just before the bus exploded)**

Takashi was feeling a little out of breathe. He was cursing himself for not exercising very much before this started. Noticing he and Rei were nearing the end of the tunnel, he risked taking a glance back. As he did he noticed that the flames were even bigger and that there was a pile of bodies still twitching at the base of the bus. Realising the bus was about to blow, he knew they wouldn't make it in time, so he steeled himself to do what was necessary. 5 meters from the end of the tunnel, they both heard the explosion. Yanking on her arm, Takashi pulled Rei to his chest, one hand on the back of her head, tucking it towards his chest, the other at the small of her back, holding her tight. He put himself in between her and the blast. Not knowing what he was doing Rei tried to struggle, pushing her hands against his chest, but he held firm. Closing his eyes he braced himself for pain as he rested the side of his head on the top of her own. A second later he felt an almost unbearable heat and the shockwave was enough to throw them off their feet. Flying through the air, they cleared the road crossing in front of the tunnel, and were now over grass. Takashi, still able to think clear enough, angled them so he would land first. For Rei, she had closed her eyes thinking they were going to die from the blast, just felt a sensation of weightlessness, then heard a pained grunt as the feeling was cut off abruptly. Opening her eyes she saw the red shirt her friend had been known to wear under his school jacket. Looking up she saw Takashi's face, scrunched up in pain, his arms now tightly wrapped around Rei's upper and lower back, as if afraid to let go.

Realising what happened she started to panic. "Takashi! Takashi, are you okay?!" she said rapidly, trying to get out of his grasp to check him over. However his grip was too tight and she was left to flail. As she was trying to get up, she heard a faint, pained chuckle. Looking up she saw that Takashi was looking at her with a look that was a cross between a grimace and a grin.

"A while ago I would have given anything to hold you like this. Didn't expect to have to get blown up to have a chance." He joked with a grin, before grimacing. Opening his eyes again, he saw an annoyed look on his childhood friend's face with a slight blush over her cheeks.

"You shouldn't have done that, you idiot! We could have made it without you having to risk yourself!" She shouted at him, but immediately regretted it when she saw the pained look flash across his face. She let out a breath before lowering her head back down onto his chest. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled, I was just worried. Why did you risk yourself for me? After all the things I put you through?"

With her head on his chest, she just sat in silence, listening to the reassuring sound of his heartbeat, her head rising and falling with each breath he took. She lay there, letting him gather his words, before she heard him release a drawn out breath.

"It's alright, I know you were." He started. "But you know why. You've always known. How else would I expect to fulfil my promise to you?" As he said that, Rei looked up with a surprised look on her face, looking straight into his brown eyes, as he smiled softly at her. Letting a light smile grace her face she lowered her head back down onto his chest and snaked her arms around his waist.

The two just lay there for a few minutes before she realized a growing problem.

"Takashi?" She started. Takashi just hummed a question in response. "You're poking me." She finished with a blush. Takashi just sweat dropped.

"Right. Sorry about that. It tends to happen when a guy holds a beautiful girl."

"Right" She responded. Neither of them made a move to get up, though.

A few seconds passed in a slightly awkward silence before Takashi broke it again. "So I should probably let you up." That was more of a statement than a question.

"Maybe"

Feeling funny about this situation, Rei waited for Takashi to let her up. After a few seconds he let go and she slid off of him and onto her knees in between his legs, before standing back up. Once up she reached down with both hands to Takashi who was now seated up, and proceeded to help him stand up as well. Once they were both standing they looked around to see if they could find anything to help them. Turning back around, Rei saw Takashi still looking around and noticed something that made her giggle.

Hearing the giggle, Takashi turned to Rei and saw her covering her mouth with her left hand, trying to stifle the giggles. Not asking any questions verbally, he just raised one eyebrow. This just cause Rei to giggle even harder, before she managed to calm herself down enough to respond.

"You're going to need knew clothes Takashi *giggle*"

Taking off his jacket he saw that the back of it had a huge hole in it that had burn marks around the edge, looking around the back at his legs he saw that from the knee down it was tattered and from the knee up it was charred. Feeling along his back he could feel skin in a number of places.

"Huh, I guess I will." He pondered, before shrugging his shoulders. "Ah well. No sense keeping the shirt." He then proceeded to pull off the tattered shirt before throwing both the shirt and jacket onto the ground in a heap. "Now then. Let's go find some replacements."

Takashi then turned and started walking up the hill, past Rei, who was still shocked at how casually he got rid of the shirt. As Takashi reached the top of the hill he turned back around and called out to Rei. "Yo, Rei. You coming?"

Turning slowly she just gave an airy reply "Right, Takashi." Before she shook her head, and with a very slight blush, started making her way up the hill. Looking up at Takashi, the setting sun casting an orange glow over him, she noticed a figure approaching behind him. Raising her arm she screamed a warning. "Takashi, behind you!" But it was too slow.

Turning around the topless teen saw the figure just as it lurched forward, knocking the both of them over. Reaching up with both hands, Takashi kept it at arm's length by holding its shoulders. It was then he got a good look at who it was.

It was a man, obviously infected by the way it was trying to gnaw on his face. Thankfully, though, it wouldn't have been able to bite anyone as it was wearing a white motorcycle helmet with a damaged visor.

Struggling to keep the infected man away from himself he let out a grunt of exertion. "Rei, could use a hand over here." He didn't hear a reply for a few seconds before the man's head suddenly jolted forward and blood started streaming down his face. Feeling the man stop moving Takashi groaned as he pushed the man off to his left and saw Rei standing over him with a slab of concrete in her hands. Looking back at the man he noticed large spider-web cracks on the back where it had been caved in slightly. Looking back up at the girl he grinned at her. "Thanks," he said somewhat quietly, as Rei reached out her hand to give him a hand up. The girl just smiled as he grabbed her hand.

Looking back at the body, Takashi finally made a few connections and smirked. Without looking at Rei he started searching the pockets of the man's plain black riding jacket.

"Takashi, what are you doing?" Rei asked confused.

Ignoring her question for a few more seconds as he continued searching, he looked at the inside of the jacket and noticed another pocket. Reaching inside he plucked out a set of keys, before finally turning back to Rei.

"I think I found our transport." Takashi said with a smug smirk plastered on his face while looking down the hill at a bike lying on its side by the highway, before he gained a contemplative look on his face and looked back at the man. Noticing the jacket had a few indents that looked like bite marks, he realised that They couldn't bite through it. "I think I'll take this too for a bit more protection. Not like he'll need it," He said as a bit of an afterthought as he slipped the jacket off of him.

Rei just stared at him with a disgusted look on her face. "Please tell me you're at least going to wear a shirt underneath that," She almost pleaded with the boy.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied rather dismissively. "I'll find a shirt in one of the cars down there." He gestured towards the highway. "So let's go."

"Lead the way, Hero" Rei joked with him, shaking her head as she followed after the teen.

***Page Break***

 **(With Tsukune and Moka)**

Standing side by side, the two teens looked down sadly at a mound of freshly moved dirt. The sun had completely set by now, but neither of them cared. They just stared semi blankly, their tears long since run out. Both of them were covered in dirt from digging a grave for the young departed friend, a shovel they stole from a shop stabbed into the ground beside them.

Finally breaking the silence, Tsukune looked at Moka and asked her, "What are we going to tell her parents?"

"Exactly what happened. We're from the monster world. They will be heartbroken of course, but every parent prepares themselves for something like this. The only difference is that the situation isn't something they would have prepared for." Moka's voice came out a little choked but there was truth behind her words. So Tsukune just accepted it for what it was.

Shaking his head, he looked back at the grave before he heard moaning getting closer to them. "We should probably get moving. It seems we've drawn attention to ourselves." Tsukune said, no real urgency in his voice, and without looking away yet.

"Yeah. We need to find Kurumu and Mizore. Try to find a way back, or at least to survive."

"*sigh* Then let's get going." He finally turned away and plucked the shovel from out of the ground, leaving a wide gash in the grass and soil.

Looking around he noticed a small group of 5 infected coming their way, and finally gained some expression on his face. A small vindictive smirk made itself known on his face. He looked beside him at Moka and noticed the steely determination in her eyes. "Let's finish these guys of quickly and find somewhere to stay for the night."

Moka just nodded once before charging off to the closest one. Tsukune just smirked one more time before racing after her, the smirk never leaving his face.

 **(20 minutes later)**

Tsukune and Moka fell to the floor, exhausted, mentally, physically and emotionally. They both took this time to take in their surroundings.

It had only taken them 5 minutes to take out the group of infected, so they had spent the next 15 trying to find somewhere to take shelter for the night. It had mostly been the two wandering through the park looking for the end of it when they stumbled across a long set of steps. Deciding to check it out they found a small building with a shrine out the front of it.

During their observations, the two noticed a few things that stuck out to them. The first was that there was a tatami mat in the centre of the room with two curtains running parallel to it and a single candle a few feet ahead, leading to a stand that looked like it was supposed to hold a sword of some sort. Off to the side of the stand was a wooden sword, a bokken, lying there.

Deciding to get a better look, Moka rose to her feet again and walked over to it and gently picked it up. Turning it in her hand she noticed something inscribed on it. A name.

"Saeko Busujima." Moka said quietly to herself. Hearing her speak, Tsukune directed his attention to the girl.

"Sorry, what was that?"

Turning around Moka held up the bokken. "That's what the sword has on it. I think it's the person's name. I think I'll hold onto it. I'm glad father taught me at least the basics of all weapons. It's a much better idea to fight these things with a weapon than hand to hand."

"Very true. We'll have to thank this person if we ever meet them." Tsukune said softly with a slight smile. "Anyway, we should probably get some rest. We'll need our energy if we want to find our friends." With that said he laid down on the mat, facing the centre and waited for Moka to do the same. However, Tsukune was surprised when the girl laid right next to him, back facing him, grabbed his hand and slung it around her stomach, making herself into the little spoon. Before Tsukune could say anything Moka spoke up.

"It's cold. Please. Just let me sleep like this. I need this." Tsukune could hear the pleading in her voice, so he knew that even if he wanted to, he couldn't have said no to her.

"Okay." And without any more words the two tried to go to sleep. Tsukune thinking back to why he felt such a rush when killing the infected from just before. One thing he knew though, was that this place was changing him. For better or worse, he just didn't know.

 **End Chapter**

 **A.N. Again, sorry for the extremely long gap. Things just got turned upside down for me. But as I said, it should be a little more frequent now.**

 **As always.**

 **Show me that smile.**

 **Fang out.**


End file.
